Transposition
by ssfr
Summary: Just an answer to a question no one asked: What would Taylor do if she woke up as Harry Potter? And, the companion question: What would Harry do if he woke up as Taylor Hebert?
1. Taylor 1

Transposition

or

. . .

Disclaimer: Don't own Worm. Don't own Harry Potter. Didn't invent the Worm/HP crossover, but I did write this one.

Like Pinky and the Brain I'm keeping this to a T rating, which I interpret as "Nothing I haven't seen on over-the-air network TV."

~*T*~

Taylor woke up, bereft and alone, cold, wrapped in a single threadbare blanket, with no sign of her wives, in a bed that was much too small, and in the wrong spot - she stubbed her fingertips on the wood-paneled wall patting the cold bed in the forlorn hope she'd find Amy or Lisa there.

She forced herself up to her knees, bashing her head into the low stepped roof. She scratched her hand on a nail poking out of it when she went to rub the sore spot, and hissed a bit.

She sucked on her bleeding hand, sat on her heels, and looked about for her glasses in the small, dark room. She finally saw a glint of light, and patted for it. The glasses had thick black frames and round lenses, but she put them on anyway. Her passenger was still there, but her range was tiny, just a little bigger than the house she was in. The fire, and her alternate form as Nanagou, was missing. Worse, her tail was missing, the two-thirds of an entity that should be connected to the base of her spine . . . wasn't.

Her belly clenched, her stomach roiled, shoulders hunched, her breath shortened. She recognized the symptoms, forced her shoulders back, "I took down Lung. I survived, blinded, beaten, and escaped a burning building in the middle of a gunfight. I'm less strong, but I am not **weak**." Her range flared under her determination, encompassing the houses on three sides, and the street in front. The shame retreated, and she turned her attention to the rest of the room she found herself in.

Three walls were straight up and down, and the last stair stepped up to being the roof. The mattress under her on had no frame, but it did have a fitted flannel sheet, and there was another blanket, slid off the edge onto the floor.

The door had slats, and, on the edge closer to her, a lever in a slot. Taylor sighed, and crossed her arms over her chest, "This is some real Roald Dahl shit, huh, Taylor?" She asked, having noticed instantly, but ignored for now, the fact that her bosom was a lot flatter than it had been, not that it was all that much to begin with. She took in a deep breath, let it out, and opened the door in search of a bathroom.

It was upstairs, and Taylor used the toilet, noted the different tackle and lack of pubic hair, and finally looked at herself in the mirror as she rinsed off her clean hands.

The green eyes were pretty, the short black hair adorably tousled, but would look much nicer a bit longer, the face prepubescently androgynous. The scar on her forehead looked fresh, maybe a few months old, still bright pink and inflamed, a jagged zigzag. She grinned Nono's grin at herself, missing the fire, but able, if not ready, to take on the world.

She clattered down the stairs and into the back yard. With a sigh, she started. First she checked her flexibility, which sucked worse than it ever had before. Her forms were just as bad, proportions wrong, balance funny, limbs not moving right. Strength and endurance were lacking, too, thirty push ups and twenty frog-hops to muscle failure. She lay on her back for a minute before she got up and started some static cool-down stretches, barely managing to get her fingertips over her toes, forehead nowhere near her knees. The other way was worse, and her splits . . .

She pulled her legs in, rose to a standing position, arms crossed, "Lots of work to do."

That work, apparently, included cooking breakfast for a whale, a heron, and a pony. Luckily she knew what they wanted, where it was kept, and how they liked it. Unluckily, she also remembered why she knew that.

And her new body's name: Harry Potter.

~*T*~

Notes: Since this was a common question in the reviews: This Taylor is almost the one from my story Pinky and the Brain. Amy made a couple choices differently, but the main flow of events was the same.


	2. Harry 1

~*T*~

Harry woke up, tucked into a warm bed, neck cricked from a too-tall pillow, another pillow pulled into his arms, cuddled tight where Luna or Hermione should be. A wandless summoning charm grabbed for his wand even as he rolled out of bed, already feeling foolish as he crouched, nightgown dangling around his thighs, looking around the unfamiliar room, the single twin bed, small desk, little bookcase. The feeling of being a fool washed away as panic surged, his summoning spell fizzling in that particular way that marked trying to summon something that didn't exist.

The peculiar feeling of _being_ himself, and, the number came impossibly easily, 3981 _others_ at the same time, did not help at all.

His breath quickened, a frantic buzzing coming from all around as the rest of him freaked out, too, even as he got bigger, encompassed the closest 42 houses.

"Taylor? Are you OK?" a male voice called up the stairs.

Harry held his breath a moment, forcing calm, before he replied, "I'm fine."

He straightened with a sigh, and headed for the bathroom. A sniff of an armpit, and he sheds the pale-blue overlong t-shirt, glancing at himself in the mirror after he noted the breasts, a good bit smaller than Luna's. Soft, young face, slender, but enough fat to hide the ribs, wild black hair, but more 17-year-old Hermione than 11-year-old. His glasses are rounded trapezoid shapes, with thin frames. He couldn't remember if he put them on or if he woke up wearing them.

He shed his grey panties and climbed into the shower to wash off the fear sweat.

Once the water was adjusted, he concentrated on the joyous memory of Hermione and Luna in his lap, kissing,"Expecto Patronum!"

His long-legged weasel patronus, (Hermione said it was a wolverine, but Luna said it was a honey badger, Harry was just happy it didn't remind him of Snape) formed in front of him, prowled about the bathtub a moment before phantom claws tore phantom holes into his flesh as it climbed up onto his shoulder. It gave him a weaselly grin, waiting.

"I'm fine, I'm a girl, I attend Winslow, I don't have a wand," He paused, "I love you," he said, chest clenching.

His patronus jumped from his shoulder and vanished through the wall. His heart unclenched, and he let the tears of relief flow, hidden by the shower, and soaped up.

His dad, Danny, had breakfast waiting when he got downstairs, dressed in black jeans, a little tighter than he liked with useless girl pockets, and a black t-shirt that showed off the definition of his arms and de-emphasized the roundness of his belly.

His heart clenched, and he blinked the sudden rush of sad-happy-grateful back, and gathered the taller, skinny man into a hug, "Thank you."

"You're welcome?" he said, hugging him back.

"My girls are always telling me to practice gratitude," Harry answered, resting his head on the man's chest, feeling strangely safe in a way that he hadn't since Sirius hugged him, Christmas of fifth year.

"Your girls? Emma and?"

"No, you haven't met them," he sighs, "Hopefully soon. Emma turned into a complete asshole when she hooked up with Sophia Hess. They put me in the locker."

"Your girls?" he asked, tensing in her arms.

Harry hugged him tighter, "Of course not, Emma, Sophia, and Madison."

He tried to pull away, "I'm going to-"

Harry shook his head, not letting go, "Do nothing. One or more of them has the school in their pocket. They're going to be famous, soon, but not yet."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a feeling they'll be overreaching, soon."

"Will you be OK?"

"I'll be fine," Harry pulled back with a smile, "They failed to kill me, so now it's time for me to win."

"That's not how it works, Taylor."

"That's how it always works, dad," Harry said, "'And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.' Nicholas Klein."

"Sometimes they build you monuments because you are dead."

"Often," Harry nods, "But I'm pretty hard to kill."

"A lot of my guys are pretty good fighters," Danny starts.

Harry nods, "Let me talk to my girls, but I think that sounds like a good idea."

~*T*~

Notes: Harry isn't from a story I've written yet. Luna was a little braver, showed a little more vulnerability, and both Harry and Hermione responded.


	3. Taylor 2

~*T*~

"Mrs. Figg's broken her leg," the heron repeated, having already told Harry the week before, "So she can't watch you."

"I'm ten. I can watch myself here, or make myself scarce somewhere else," Taylor said, calmly.

"Or you can come with us and not make trouble."

"I end trouble, I don't start it," Taylor said, smiling.

The heron blinked down at her.

"Keep your little pony away from me at the zoo, or give me the five quid you'd pay to get me in, and I'll stay out of your hair until tomorrow."

"If you get picked up by the police we won't get you until Monday."

"That's fine," Taylor held out her hand.

The heron handed her a five pound note, "Be back after church tomorrow."

Taylor gave her a lazy salute, "Roger," and started out the door.

~*i*~

Taylor walked along, smiling at the passerby, who cringed gratifyingly and got out of her way, and mapped her new neighborhood, filling in what Harry remembered with her prioperception, cellars, storm and septic sewers, the layouts of the houses, which vary more than the outsides. As she walked, she pondered, wondering how she would find Amy and Lisa, if they were even here with her, and her age. If they were in England, they were still two out of millions, in any of a thousand little towns, and there was no internet, well, there was, but it was tiny. She spotted a newspaper, rolled, on a porch, no, front step, and smiled.

She walked up to the door, knocked, waited, knocked again, then sat down, took the rubber band off, and flipped through the paper, looking for the classifieds, then the personals, women seeking, "Amy is looking for Taylor and Lisa, please call, 01293 438000" *note: this is the Crawley Borough Council number in real life

She straightened the paper out, rolled it back up, and put the rubber band back before she left it on the step where she found it, stretched, and went in search of a pay phone.

~*i*~

"Hello?" an older woman answers the phone.

"Yes, this is Taylor, and I'm calling for Amy?"

"Hermione?"

Taylor blinks, then nods, "Maybe? We're pen-pals and she asked me to call."

"Hermione!" the other end is muffled, like there is a hand over the microphone, "Taylor's on the phone!"

Even more muffled, "Really! Already?! Don't let her hang up!"

"You hear that?" the other woman asked a bit of a laugh in her voice.

"I did."

"I think this is the first time she's had a friend call, ever."

"Ouch. Could you give her a hug for me?"

"Sure," and there was a real chuckle this time.

The phone was handed over, and Amy squeaked, startled by something. "Taylor?" she asked.

"Hey pretty lady. Sounds like you're ten, too."

"Eleven, twelve in September, but who's counting."

"Sure. I'll be eleven at the end of the month."

"Awesome, you'll probably get a letter from Hogwarts, too."

"Hogwarts?"

"Magic school."

"Interesting."

"Yeah, I've got an appointment to get my school stuff Thursday of next week, wanna meet up?"

"Sure, where at?"

"King's Cross station, in London, Pancras Road west side entrance."

"I'll be there. How's your family this time? I got a heron, the whale she married, and the pony they spawned. The heron's my aunt."

"A pair of dentists, in the Little Shop of Horrors mold. It's lovely."

"Not used to hugs?"

"Not from adults, no."

~*i*~

"We really should at least have a convenience store in easy walking distance," Taylor grumbled, continuing the three mile trek to the closest fast food place, a Mosburger.

"Why," Taylor asked the manager while she waited for her burger on a bun of pressed rice, "Do you have a Japanese chain restaurant in Surrey?"

"Because the Author loves you, and wants you to be happy."

"Have you been talking to Amy?"

"No, I don't think so. Actually, the owner visited one in Japan, and thought it was amazing. We're totally an unlicensed knockoff, really."

"Hmm."

Taylor took her burger when it was ready, sat at a table with a clear view out the window and of the door, her back to a wall, and ate it slowly, sipping her water.

~*i*~

Taylor sat in the swing, feet dangling, further from the Dursley house than the rumors about Harry had spread.

A smile curled her lips, watching the young mothers talking and the little kids at play. She looked at her left hand, palm facing away, fingers spread out flat, "Yeah, it'll be a bit longer now, won't it," she sighed, one corner of her mouth pulling down, then relaxing, "More time with my wives, and we'll be all grown up again before long at all."

Even so her hands clenched tighter on the swing chains as a screaming baby quieted suddenly, surprised and distracted by the nipple before sucking greedily. The baby's mother stroked his, he was in yellow, so Taylor was guessing, hair, smiling. The baby squirmed, protesting the distraction. Taylor hopped off the swing and left the park.

~*i*~

Taylor woke as her concrete bed shook under the load of an artic, looked up at the underside of the road above her, and sighed, "Add this to the list of things that sound better in theory than practice," shifted position, and tried to go back to sleep.

The concrete sucked the heat from her slight body, and the lack of blankets didn't help, but the little cubby under the bridge was dry and out of the wind.

"Could be worse," she grumbled, and turned over again, onto her right side, pillowed her head on her arm, tucked her other hand between her knees, and went still again.

~*T*~


	4. Harry 2

~*T*~

Harry was most of the way to school when a paper airplane dove down the front of his shirt.

He put his back against a convenient building, and unfolded the letter:

"Harry James Granger Lovegood Potter," the letter started, without even a "Dear."

"Female's interesting, wandless matches me, but is annoying. Fine is not nearly descriptive enough. Please use the checklist below to clarify, check all that apply:

[ ] Emotionally distressed

[ ] Broken bone[s]

[ ] arm

[ ] leg

[ ] other

[ ] bleeding

[ ] bruises

[ ] other [elaborate]

I attend Arcadia, had a massive crush on my adoptive sister, which she's fucking clueless about, and cuss. A lot.

Luna hasn't gotten in touch with me yet, but I'm sending her a note when I send this one.

Call me Amy."

Harry nodded to himself, checked the boxes labeled "Emotionally distressed" and "other," then wrote "missing my girls terribly," under it.

He then crossed out Amy, and wrote in "Ishmael." He clicked his pen in, then back out again, and added "My name is Taylor."

Pen back in pocket, he folded the paper back into an airplane, and it flew off to the southwest.

A block from the school Harry stopped, watching the buses arrive, and the kids get off. They look so young. At last the girl he's looking for arrives, and he yells her name, "Sophia, so glad to see ya."

The tall, slender girl startles, turned to look, "What do you want, Hebert?"

"I want you to come over here and throw the first punch, arsehole."

Sophia crossed her arms, tilted her head a little to the side, "Why would I do that?"

"Because otherwise you admit you're a coward, afraid to pick on a girl smaller than you without a pair of cling-ons and the teachers ready to take your side," Harry waved her closer, palms up, "Are you brave enough? Or are you a weak little girl, scared not only of your shadow, but of me?"

"You're not worth my time," Sophia turned to go.

"No? We know you can't leave me alone for some reason. The whole school knows. Is the problem that you're a coward, who'll only enter a fight you've already rigged? Or is it that you have a crush on me, and are trying to show it like a little boy pulling a little girl's hair?"

"What did you say?" Sophia growled, turned back.

"You should bring me frogs or something, instead of tripping me in the halls and ruining my schoolwork, if you want to do the little-boy courtship."

"I'm not courting you."

"Really. Rebecca Schaeffer ring any bells, miss stalker?"

"What did you say?"

"I called you a dangerous lunatic."

Sophia growled, dropped her backpack, and started across the street without looking.

 **HONK** blared the car's horn while it's brakes squeaked, then came to a stop inches from Sophia, who didn't even turn to look at it.

"So, one free shot, coward."

Sophia took it, a hard right jab to the ribs.

Harry faded with the blow, struck up with his right palm toward's Sophia's chin. She jerked aside, taking a glancing blow to the cheekbone.

Harry stepped forward, stomping his left foot down flat behind and to the outside of Sophia's right, striking up with his left palm even as he grabbed her left shoulder and pulled.

She swept the blow aside with her right hand, stumbled off balance, but not falling.

Harry smiled, another step forward, another right palm aimed at her chin, another block.

Sophia curled, hands going to her crotch, while Harry planted his foot, grabbed the back of her neck, and brought her face down into his other knee.

He let her fall to the ground, and took a step back.

The secretary and the security guard looked both ways before crossing the street.

"You're going to be expelled for fighting at school!" the secretary pointed at Harry.

"I don't think so," Harry answered, "She didn't get expelled for pushing me down stairs, vandalizing my locker, or trying to kill me on school property, so I don't think you can expel me for defending myself off school property."

"You were baiting her!"

"Really? And it's my fault that she took the bait?"

"She's black! It's a hate crime!"

"It's perfectly legal to hate someone because they are an arsehole."

"But she was a disadvantaged youth."

"Look at her clothes, she's better off than I am."

Sophia groaned, pushed weakly at the ground.

"Come on, arsehole, these two idiots are going to leave you here," Harry said, pulling the taller girl's arm over his shoulder, "Let's get you to the nurse's office," and stood up, looking both ways before starting across the street.

The secretary and the security guard followed along behind.

~*i*~

"Yer a good un," Sophia slurred while Harry supported her to the nurses office, "Too much respect for authority, shoulda kicked my ass ages ago."

"Quite often," Harry paused, "It's rarely a good idea to get into a fight you can't win. When fighting humans submitting is a fairly reliable way to survive, and you can't continue the fight if you're dead."

"So you were just waiting for the right time to befriend me?"

Harry blinked at her, then nodded, "That's a way to look at it."

"I totally missed the knee to the crotch. Good shot, totally distracted me from the fight," she hugged Harry firmly about the shoulders.

Harry looked at her sideways, "Thank you."

"Good job getting me off school property and pissed off, too, gotta control the fight as much as you can."

"You almost got hit by a car."

"That's fine, don't worry about me in traffic."

"OK."

~*T*~


	5. Taylor 3

~*T*~

Taylor waited for the wash of blue light clinging to every surface around her to fade, then teleported to another sunny spot, closer to the station. The light was almost hidden, nearly invisible in the direct sun, faint in the shadows, but obvious.

That, she figured, was how they knew it was Harry's fault when he teleported at school.

Working line-of-sight was faster than walking, and kept people from noticing her appear, or disappear, out of nowhere in a wash of heatless blue flame. Roof to roof, tree to tree, ten to thirty seconds a jump, as little as a half mile, or as much as ten at a time, she traversed the suburbs of London, into its dark heart.

She walked the last couple blocks, got a soda from a kiosk, and sat down to wait.

~*i*~

"Amy?" Taylor greeted the bushy-haired girl, a little taller than she was, with gorgeous golden-brown eyes.

"Taylor!" Amy grabbed her up into a hug and swung her around in circles.

"Here you are!" and a flying tackle hug took them all to the ground.

Once she had her glasses back on, Taylor stared at the blue-eyed blonde who had them pinned, "Lisa."

That familiar vulpine grin spread under those slightly bulging blue eyes, and Taylor leaned up for a kiss.

She got a quick peck on the lips, as did Amy. Lisa's grin spread as Amy pinned Taylor's shoulders down, and kissed her soundly.

A throat is cleared, again, and this time Amy broke the kiss, then sat back on Taylor's hips. She wiped her lips with her hand, grinned down at the other two, "I missed you."

"We missed you too, Amy."

"Are you going to introduce your friends?" Hermione's mother asked.

"Obviously good friends," her father said.

"Oh," Hermione got to her feet, then helped the other two up, "Yes, this is Taylor," she gestured.

"Harry Potter," Taylor said, with a little curtsey, which was, as always, a bit funny-looking in trousers.

"And Lisa."

"Luna Lovegood," Lisa bowed, with a flourish of imaginary hat.

"Let's go," Amy said, then held out her left elbow.

Taylor tucked her hand under, and leaned against Amy's shoulder.

Lisa grabbed Taylor's free hand, and leaned into Taylor's shoulder as Amy led them all off.

~*i*~

"Good Morning," Lisa greeted the goblin behind the desk, who growled back. She clapped her hands and laughed.

"What'd'ya want?"

"To rule the world," Lisa answered, "But I'll settle for access to our vaults."

"Your vault, miss?"

"Lovegood. Luna Lovegood," Lisa said, giving the goblin a toothy grin, "My partners are Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Potter has a vault, and I believe Granger has inherited one, due to the recent unpleasantness."

"You may well be right. Let us see if we can get your gold flowing, then," the goblin passed over a single black quill, and three pieces of parchment, which glitter with strange, almost invisible, golden letters, "Write your names."

"Given or chosen?"

The goblin laughs, "Either. It tells the spell what name to use for you and provides a blood sample that is matched against anyone who's ever signed an official document in Gringotts," He bustled about behind his counter, and set a box on top of it.

"Oh, nice," Lisa said, and signed "Luna Lovegood," before handing the quill to Taylor.

Taylor quickly signed "Taylor Potter," and passed the quill to Amy.

Amy signed "Amy Granger," and passed the quill back to the goblin, who put it away.

"Lovegood, you first," the goblin held out a hand for her parchment.

She handed it over, and he put it in the box, which made "tick-tock" noises for a minute before going "Bing."

He pulled the parchment out, set it down, and held out his hand for Taylor's parchment.

It is handed over, and he picked up Lisa's paper while the box ticked, "Lovegood: vault 712, restricted to 24 galleons a day; vault 333, unlimited access; vault 13, unlimited access."

He held out his hand for Amy's parchment even as he pulled Taylor's from the box. While the box ticked he read off, "Potter: vault 687, unlimited access; vault 19, unlimited access; vault 3, unlimited access."

He set that parchment down, and read the last, "Granger: vault 451, unlimited access."

He added the last parchment to the stack, and slid it to Lisa, "This will be eight galleons each."

"Take it from vault 712. We need to inspect our vaults before we order keys, or consolidate them. If we do not have the 14 knuts available after checking our vaults, I authorize two sickles from vault 712 tomorrow."

"Very well. Griphook! Vaults 712, 687, 451, 333, 19, 13, and 3."

Griphook blinked, pulled out a pad of paper, "Say again all after 712," he said, writing down that number.

"687, 451, 333, 19, 13, 3. Inspection. Collect 24 galleons from vault 712, that's the withdrawal limit there, no limits on the others."

Griphook nodded, "Understood," He looked at the two adults and three girls, "Come on."

~*T*~

Notes: In The Princess Bride Goldman has a point where he talks about how S. Morgenstern spent three pages talking about Buttercup's wardrobe, and how it was regarded as a great point of satire in the original, but was boring, so he elided it.

In similar vein, the visit to Gringotts and the shopping trip has been quite done to death, so here only the points of difference are left: Vault 712 is Xenophilius's vault, so Luna has restricted access ($1200/day in 1991 money, but they are very well off), but the others trickled down to these three as their late owners, and subsequent heirs, died in the recent unpleasantness. Per canon, the lower the vault number, the older the family.

And Vault 451 is a nod to Bradbury.


	6. Harry 3

~*T*~

A strange blonde, in a cute red dress, flounced into Harry's World Issues class, told Mr. Gladly, "I need Taylor Hebert," and gestured Harry to her, palm down. He started to pack up, waiting to see if she would have the rest of the passphrase.

"Why?"

"The aardvark said to bring her," He stood up at "aardvark," and started towards the door.

"Aardvark?" Gladly asked.

"Principle Blackwell, you wouldn't understand."

Gladly just nodded, unwilling to admit not understanding.

Luna had him spun around, back against the lockers opposite, before the door is entirely closed, and was kissing him before he could even say hello.

"Well, this is different," Luna said with a sigh, "I'd hoped being taller would put us closer to the same height, but you're even taller than before."

"Have you seen Hermione yet?"

"No, but she sent me a note, so I wrote her back."

"It's nice to see you, but I don't think you're a student here."

"Nope," Luna leaned in close, dropped her voice to almost inaudible, but didn't whisper, "You're holding the supervillian known as Tattletale."

"Wow," Harry stepped back, holding her by the shoulders, "Pretty spiffy."

"Isn't it?" Luna grinned a strange foxy grin.

Harry leaned in and kissed her again.

"Come along, let's go find Hermione."

Harry contemplated the last three, well, two and a half, classes of the day, shrugged, and held out his arm.

Luna wrapped her arm around his waist, tucked up against his hip, and led him down the hall. Harry stutter-stepped, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders, following.

"I can drive a car," Luna said.

"Oh dear."

"I drove a big white van here."

"Oh dear."

"I ordered a big sticker that says 'Free Candy' for it."

"You didn't."

"Of course I did."

"It already has a speaker set to play ice cream truck music."

Harry started giggling, which turned into a helpless cackle very quickly.

"You evil, evil woman," Luna said sadly, with a very cute pout.

"You know I love you madly, right?"

Luna looked him up and down, "I think you need to show me, in the back of my big white van."

"OK, after we pick up Hermione."

~*i*~

"We're looking for a Herman Grangler? He requested pick up and molestation?" Luna said into the van's microphone, and it promptly blared out over the crowd of students departing Arcadia High.

"No," Harry said into the mike, taking it from Luna, "That's Herm-i-on-e Granger, I'm sure."

"Granger, then," Luna took the mike back, "Please present yourself at the side door of the van for pickup and molestation."

A short, pretty, but normal looking girl with shoulder length brown hair banged on the side door with her fist, "You lot are the worst taxi company ever," she said loudly, "Pickup and transportation! Not pickup and molestation."

"Aww, we brought the van and everything," Luna said into the mike, smiling, "Pickup and transportation, then," she unkeyed the mike, then clicked it again, "We could include the molestation at no charge?"

Hermione took the mike, keyed it, "Just drive."

"Ryoukai!" Luna floored it, then put the van back in drive. The rear wheels chirped once, twice, then smoked the whole way to the first turn.

Harry flopped back into the passenger seat, and buckled up, with Hermione in his lap.

"This really isn't safe," Hermione complained, "I know far too much about motor vehicle accidents now, so slow the fuck down and let me get my own seatbelt."

Luna merged violently onto the highway out of town, then slowed to the speed limit in the right lane. Horns blared behind her, and she laughed as they passed her at a good thirty over the 55 speed limit, "Everyone drives 75 through here, they should just raise the speed limit to what people drive."

"That would make too much sense," Hermione said, buckled in her own seat, "You mentioned molestation?"

"Yeah, we're gonna go somewhere we won't be bothered for a few hours for that."

"Sounds good," Hermione said, before pulling out a cell phone and making a call, "Hello! This is Amy Dallon, I'm not going to be in until," she looked at Luna.

Luna held up her right hand, spread all of her fingers, closed them, then spread them again.

Hermione smiled, "About eight. I'll have two hours, so triage for that, please," she nodded, "That would be fine. Thank you. You too. I'll see you at eight."

"Two thirty plus ten hours is not eight," Luna said, with another cute pout.

"No, but I doubt any of us has enough stamina for even five hours right now, and I'll want some dinner before my shift."

"You're the healer Panacea, I have all the bugs, what do you have, Tattletale?"

"Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me. I can piece together minimal data into amazing rafts of information."

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"That green Subaru?" Luna pointed with her chin.

"Yes?" Hermione asked, leaning forward between the front seats.

"Manual transmission, three kid seats, hasn't been washed in months, owner's his, no, her own mechanic, has been really bad off in the past, isn't doing too hot right now, separated from her wife, driving to pick up the kids for a few weeks. Looks forward to playing with the kids, doesn't look forward to replacing her transmission mount, which is worn out and is making her shifts sloppy."

"All that from two cars back?"

"Yep," Luna sighed, downshifted, floored the accelerator, and passed the seven cars in front of her without signaling.

"The green Subaru's driver had short hair, beard stubble, and male pattern baldness," Harry reported, letting go of the panic handle on the dash.

"FTM?" Luna asked herself, "No, MTF, procrastinating, or non-op . . . " she shrugged, "I'd have to talk to her to tell."

~*T*~


	7. Taylor 4

~*T*~

After many giggling calls of "Faster!" Griphook answered, "One speed only."

"That sucks!" Taylor called back.

Hermione's parents were huddled, wrapped it each others arms, eyes closed, on the back bench of the cart, and groaned as one at that claim.

Amy reached back and patted them on the head, "There there."

Lisa bit her knuckle to keep from laughing at them.

~*i*~

After looking through seven vaults of money, heirlooms, and other McGuffins, and much loading of pockets and stuffing of impossibly long, thick, hard (and sometimes throbbing) things in unreasonably tight places that they shouldn't fit, Harry counted out four galleons and twenty-four sickles, which he handed to Griphook.

"What's this for?" Griphook asked, even as he pocketed the coins.

"A tip, or gratuity, is used to show appreciation for the work performed. Generally it is 20% of what one paid for a meal, or in this case, 20% of our banking fees today."

"That sounds . . . profitable."

"It can be."

~*i*~

They shopped. Robes. Trunks. Owls. A funny orange cat. Books, books, and more books. Wands from a grubby little shop down a grubby little side street. Wands from a grubby little shop on the main drag. More books. Back down the grubby little side street for even more books. At last nothing more can be stuffed in unreasonably tight, but very stretchy, places, and the girls carried their last purchases out of the magical shopping arcade, which, to Taylor's mild disappointment, was not named Abenobashi.

"Miss Granger! We've been looking for you all day!" a tall, black-haired, severe-looking witch with lovely blue eyes greeted them.

"We ran into Luna, and she's taken us around for our shopping," Amy answered, with a bright smile, "We didn't see you, and thought you must have been distracted."

One of the boys in the witch's group made a break for it, disappearing into the pet shop.

"It's probably better we weren't with you, you seem to have your hands full already," Taylor said, smiling gently, "We'll see you at school."

"Ta ta for now," Luna agreed. She picked her cloth bag of books back up, and started toward the grimy pub at the entrance.

"Ta ta," she agreed, then led her gagglefuck of students to the pet store.

~*i*~

"What are we eating?"

"Fish and chips!" Taylor said, "Or curry. Standard British street food, but it's not anything I've ever had."

Amy nodded, "I want a lamb vindaloo."

"That sounds perfect," Luna agreed.

"How have you never had fish and chips?" Hermione's mother asked.

"I've had school fish and chips, but that's not the same."

"No, I don't suppose it would be."

~*i*~

Amy dragged all three of them into the latrine once they got back to King's Cross, pressed the shorter two into the back corner of a stall, and wrapped her arms around them, "So," she sighed, "Down to just our passengers?"

"Yup," Lisa said, popping her 'P' for emphasis. "No sign of the rest of our entities, so we shouldn't have to worry about random parahumans popping up. Wizarding World crazies are going to be enough trouble all by themselves."

"Oh?" Taylor asked.

"That scar? You got it when a magical terrorist leader tried to kill you, and faked his death."

"Oh, that's lovely," Amy sighed, hugged them tighter.

"It gets better. Most of them claimed they were mastered, and served no time, nor suffered any real fines. One of them owns the current Minister of Magic.

"Where does he live?"

"The Minister?"

"The terrorist with him in his pocket."

"Wiltshire, somewhere."

"Find out more exactly, please."

"Ryoukai."

"You guys learn any cool magic yet? Hermione could change the color of clothes," Amy sighed, "She'd teleported once, but didn't work on that once she knew about magic."

"Harry did too. I have to really work myself up to manage it so far."

Lisa laughed, "Not only can I teleport, but I can read minds."

"So we can interrogate the terrorist instead of just killing him without warning?"

"Probably,"

"Good."

"Taylor," Lisa actually blushed, then scratched the side of her nose, "Maybe I am interested. It's really weird. I want the cuddling and closeness, but I'm almost entirely not horny."

"That's a way to put it," Taylor laughed, "Almost entirely."

"Your scar has a mind," Lisa frowned, chewing on her lip, "And he's all sorts of pissed off."

"Well, that's no good," Amy said, "Pull him off?" she asked, feeling for Taylor's physical state. She hissed, "What happened to you?"

"Normal childhood bumps and scrapes, with normal 1750s treatment, and not enough food."

"Huh. May I fix that?"

"Let's wait until after we start school."

"No, we should leave the chunk of magical terrorist for a bit," Lisa answered the earlier question, "I think we can find something fun to do with him."

"I guess this is where we part," Taylor sighed, rubbing her face against Amy's shoulder.

"We should go to Hermione's house, so then we can teleport back."

"That sounds good," Taylor nodded.

"I'm pretty sure we can have a bath together and share my bed, but we'll have to keep it down."

"Are you sure? I might have outed us to your dad."

"It's probably fine," Amy said, "I think he thinks there's no chances of accidental pregnancies this way."

"What?" Taylor pulled back to look into Amy's face.

"Yeah, same sex accidental pregnancies are a thing here," Lisa agreed.

"That's," Taylor paused, "Kinda cool, I guess, but inconvenient."

"I know," Amy drew out the second word to about three syllables.

~*T*~

Note: You may have noticed a trend, of characters going on very detailed shopping trips, which talk up rafts of things they buy. Rafts of things that are never mentioned again.

I'd probably be more interested in these trips if they were used to explore the abused and deprived character's emotional reaction to being well-to-do, but I haven't seen that yet.


	8. Harry 4

~*T*~

Harry brushed Luna's long, sweaty, blonde hair back from her face, "Your eyes are impossibly green. That's really pretty."

Luna laughed in his face, "Now you notice."

"Um, boy," he said, then groaned as Hermione groped something that isn't a normal boy-part.

"Really?" Hermione asked.

"Yep."

~*i*~

"So," Hermione started, looked at Harry.

Harry blinked, "Ara."

Luna fell about laughing, "And now you notice, again."

"Notice what?" Hermione asked.

"Your eyes are golden."

"No, they're not."

"They kinda are."

"Humans don't have golden eyes."

"Look in the mirror."

Hermione turned to do just that, and Harry grabbed her bare shoulder, "Clothes?" he said.

"There's no one out here," Hermione said, looking to Luna for confirmation.

"If you say so," Luna said, in her sweetest, gentlest, you're-totally-wrong voice.

Hermione sighed, and started looking for her trousers, eventually finding them, and her phone, "Already six? How far out of town are we?"

"About an hour at the speed limits, twenty minutes if I drive like Harry flies."

Hermione's lips tightened, then she sighed, "Let's get cleaned up, I'm hungry."

Luna dug out an industrial-sized bag of baby wipes, and they barely managed to keep from getting distracted while they cleaned up, but eventually they were dressed. Harry and Hermione pulled deodorant from their bags, and Luna laughed at them.

"Some people," Hermione started.

"Don't like anyone to know they had any fun," Luna took over, "Your hair's mussed and sweaty, and you're smiling at everything."

"That doesn't mean they _know_ ," Hermione said, pulling a hairbrush from her bag.

Harry took the brush from her, and started brushing Hermione's hair.

"Considering Amy's rep as "the cape most likely to go postal," at Winslow," Harry teased gently, working his way up from the ends of Hermione's hair.

A minute later he handed the brush back, "Done already?" Hermione asked with a sigh.

"Your hair's like you used sleakeasy's on it," Harry said, "I think I've got the crazy hair this time."

"Let me see," Hermione started brushing Harry's hair, also from the ends, continued after a few strokes of the brush, "Yep, fifth-year hair, little less fine, so it shouldn't tangle as much, but we should put it up before we have sex."

"You really seemed to enjoy pulling it, though," Harry said, leaning into her.

"It is so long," Hermione said.

"And poofy!" Luna added, "Would your old hair have been like that if you grew it out?"

"I don't know," Harry said, eyes closed, as he enjoyed Hermione working out the tangles, "I kinda froze it at horrible with accidental magic when I was younger."

"Froze it?"

"Yeah, Aunt Petunia gave me this terrible buzz-cut with little tufts, I freaked out, my hair was back the way it was before she cut it the next morning, and never changed."

Luna gave him a hug, "I guess we'd better get going," Luna leaned forward, and received a kiss from Hermione, "Buckle up!"

Hermione and Harry buckled themselves into the back seat quickly.

Luna checked her mirrors, cranked up the motor, toggled the switch labeled 4WD, cranked the wheel over, "Hold on," she grinned, the loud pedal floored before she dropped the shifter into reverse.

Gravel flew from under all four wheels, and she lifted off the gas, shifted into 3 while still going backwards, then floored it again while metal shrieked, groaned, and clicked, continued to slide backwards a moment even as the wheels spun, threw gravel behind them and ticking along the sides of the van.

The engine roar changed as the wheels finally gripped, and the van rocked back, then forward, raced down the gravel road back to the highway.

Harry whooped in joy. Hermione buried her head against his shoulder, and clung to him tightly.

Luna jerked the wheel just a little, tapped the brakes, turning almost broadside on the road, then went full pedal again. The van drifted up onto the highway, suspension almost bottomed out, then rebounded, two feet of air under the wheels.

Hermione shrieked as the van's body rolled side to side, jerked left to right as Luna fought to straighten out their path. Foot off the gas, shifter in neutral, toggle the 4WD button, shifter to OD, pedal to the floor again, and Luna cackled gleefully while the engine spooled up again.

~*i*~

Luna bounced the van into the hospital parking lot, raced towards an empty spot straight ahead of them, shifted her grip on the wheel, jammed the parking brake down with her left foot, whipped the wheel around, took one hand off the wheel and released the parking brake as the van bumped into the parking barrier with the back wheels.

She put the van in park, set the parking brake again, and smiled at Hermione, "Are you buying dinner?"

"Are we there yet?" Hermione asked, eyes closed, curled around Harry's shoulder.

"Parked in the parking lot."

"Why's the engine still running?"

"Waiting for the turbos to cool," Luna pulled one of the levers under her seat, and turned it to face them.

"Turbos?"

"E-85 and kinda stupid boost, 'cause the V10s aren't that strong. It should last a few years, hopefully," Luna said, "What are you getting us to eat?" she looked Hermione and Harry up and down.

Hermione blushed to the neck of her shirt, "Hospital food, 'cause there's nothing good for a half-mile around here."

"Sigh," Luna glanced over her shoulder at the instrument cluster, "It'll be cooling for another couple minutes, probably, we could drive."

"Slowly."

"Yeah, the cops are looking for us by now," Luna glanced at the dash again, "I should get this thing a turbo timer."

"Which is?" Hermione asked, letting herself be distracted.

~*T*~

Note: The van is an extended-length 2009 Ford E-350 SuperDuty that's had at least it's purchase price in upgrades done. Luna's still gonna break it if she keeps driving like that.


	9. Taylor 5

~*T*~

"Better put your hands up and get in the van; or else you'll get blown away," the girls started into the last verse, danced as they sang. Amy's new parents laughed helplessly, hands over their faces while they peeked between their fingers.

"Stagin' a coup like yeah," Taylor sang,

"Brainwashin' moles like yeah," Amy sang a line.

"We only torture the folks we don't like; You're probably gonna be OK," Lisa sang, but that line was supposed to be a bit awkward.

"Yeee-aaa-hhh, it's a party in the CIA," they harmonized.

"Yeee-aaa-hhh, it's a party in the CIA."

Clapping filled the train car, and Taylor curtsied. Lisa and Amy bowed.

~*i*~

"So, other than songwriting, what do you three do for fun?" Hermione's mother asked.

Amy blushed from the tips of her ears to the collar of her shirt. Taylor grabbed her hand, completely blank-faced. Lisa looked at them, looked at Hermione's snickering parents, then cackled like the wicked witch she was.

"Moving off that topic," Hermione's father said quickly, which startled a laugh out of Taylor, "You are looking forward to magic school?"

"Mostly," Lisa suddenly smiled, shifted her accent a bit, "Mostly," she said again.

"What?" Hermione's mother, Michelle, asked.

"We'd better get back, because it's going to get dark soon, and they mostly come at night," Taylor quoted, paused, "Mostly."

"Your parents let you watch that?" Hermione's father, Ian, asked.

"My parents were killed by a magical terrorist who faked his death when I was 15 months old," Taylor answered, "Worst thing was, the Wizarding World bought it, hook, line, and sinker."

"So you don't think he's dead?" Michelle totally went with the diversion.

"No body, no wand. He scarpered," Lisa said, "The Wizarding World knows it, too, even if they won't admit it. He had a Taboo on his nom-de-guerre, and no one uses it to this very day, they refer to him as You-Know-Who, not even using his given name, Tom Marvolo Riddle.

"Do they even know his real name?"

"That's a really good question," Lisa agreed, "We'll have to check the Profit's archives."

"If they haven't published it already, it'll be really hard to get them to publish it now."

"A banner in the Ministry?"

"Nobody, not even Wizards, are dumb enough to buy that," Taylor said firmly.

~*i*~

"Bath," Amy said, once their excess bags are dropped in her room.

Taylor and Lisa shared a glance, "Do we have to?" Lisa whined perfectly, "We're not even dirty."

"We can totally fix that," Amy said, then grabbed the other two's hands, and led them from her room.

"Do we want to?" Taylor asked.

Lisa closed the bathroom door behind them, and pulled her dress off before answering, "The almost entirely not horny is convenient, I'm sure. It gives us about three hours a day back for other things," she cupped her teen-boy-flat boobs, "Plus it'd feel weird, at least for a bit."

Amy dropped her shirt on the floor before she leaned in and kissed Lisa, "Whatever you're comfortable with."

Lisa moaned into the kiss, pressed firmly against her wife. Amy clutched her back.

Taylor whimpered, "Almost completely," she said, and busied herself running the bath.

She shucked off and got in the hot water as soon as the temperature was almost right.

Amy and Lisa joined her a moment later.

"Not comfortable with this tackle," Taylor said, gesturing at the water, "And only almost completely not horny."

"I can fix that, too."

"Maybe later, I'm famous, and we may need that fame," Taylor sunk down under the water a bit more, up to her nose.

Lisa leaned in and kissed her scar, pulled back, and said something.

Taylor shifted, getting her ears out of the water, "What?"

"Mr. Riddle's quite confused. He craves love, but it hurts him at the same time. The more loved you are, the weaker he gets, the closer he gets to you. He'd give almost anything to be loved like you are, Taylor, but is so scared of losing himself."

"Really," Taylor asked.

Amy slid herself into Taylor's lap, wrapped her arms around her, and kissed her soundly.

"Really," Lisa affirmed, smiling, then kissed Taylor's scar again.

"That scared longing," Taylor smiled, "That's him."

Amy pulled Taylor's head down, and kissed her scar.

Lisa cackled, "Resistance is futile, Mister Riddle, your magical and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own," she said, before kissing her wives again.

Taylor rubbed her forehead on Lisa's shoulder, smiling, almost grinning.

~*T*~

The little girl expects no declaration of tenderness from her doll.  
She loves it - and that's all. It is thus that we should love. - DeGourmont

~*T*~

Notes: It was about here that the Author made some design choices about this story.

The meta-amusing one: This Dumbledore isn't good, he isn't bad, he's just nice. He knows a lot of things, but he isn't wise. He was completely right about love being key to solving the dark lord problem, and completely screwed the pooch anyway.

He's totally Peter Principled himself: He is an awesome Transfiguration teacher, and while he could do an adequate job at any two of his major responsibilities, he's completely overwhelmed trying to accomplish all of them.

He also overfunctions under stress, which is why he Peter Principled himself, and willfully doesn't understand children, or adults, expecting them to behave as rational, trusting agents, instead of irrational beings who mistrust anything they haven't seen or experienced themselves.

The author hadn't read a non-wicked, non-senile Dumbledore in a while, so this seemed funny.

And the Author heard Weird Al's "Party in the CIA" for the first time just after the first draft of this, too.


	10. Harry 5

~*T*~

After a forgettable meal in the hospital canteen they followed Hermione on her rounds.

Luna baffled the two people who looked like they would complain, and Harry collated an inductive understanding of the issues.

"They triaged for you," he said, "So a dozen major injuries, and a dozen cases of long-term metabolic abuse."

"Yup. Amy just reset them to normal, told them to eat less sugar, and let them go."

"Bet that didn't help much."

"No, not really."

"What do you want to do about it?"

"Eh," Hermione shrugged, "We'll see after the test cases."

Luna gave her a hug, "Good job."

~*i*~

Luna reversed into Harry's driveway, parking next to his dad's truck.

"Hey, dad!"

"Hey," Danny got up from the couch, "I was getting worried, the school called, said you got in a fight."

"Yep. Off school property, but," he shrugged, "Whupped on Sophia. She's decided she wants to be my friend now."

"What?"

"Yeah," Luna said, "That's what I thought. She seems really happy about it for some reason, so," she lifted one shoulder, dropped it, held out her hand, "Luna McFeely."

Hermione snorted back a laugh, held out her own hand, "Amy Dallon," got her own handshake.

Harry plopped onto the couch. Hermione and Luna exchanged a glance, then Hermione dropped into his lap and Luna sat down beside them, cuddled to their side.

"So these are your girls, then?" Danny asked, relocating to the chair to one side.

"Yes," Hermione answered, "We corresponded recently, then managed to meet up. They really make me happy."

"I can see that," an uncomfortable smile twisted his lips and crinkled his eyes, "I'd prefer not to know too many details, but if you need to talk, about anything, I'll listen. Probably won't be able to help, but Taylor's mom managed to teach me how to listen."

"Thank you," Hermione said, "My folks aren't so good at listening, they get to the point they think they know what's going on and jump to trying to solve it."

"Better than mine,' Luna said, "They figured out I had powers and jumped straight to "how can we profit." from "you should have saved your brother," never mind I got powers after he committed suicide."

Harry hugged her tighter a moment, and Hermione kissed her temple.

"Would you like to spend the night? We have some extra bedding," he asked.

"I'll need to call my parents."

~*i*~

Harry skinned off quickly, pulled on his nightgown with his back to the girls.

"Oh," Luna smiled, suddenly staring at Hermione, "You can do cosmetic changes."

"Yeah?"

"Harry's still all ashamed of his pudgy tummy."

"But we like his pudgy tummy."

"He doesn't, do you, Harry?"

"I like this body, it works well, is kinda tall, has lovely hair that Hermione likes to play with, runs fast, there's nothing worth complaining about."

"See, he wants that tummy fat moved," Luna blinked, "And his eyes fixed, if it isn't too much trouble."

"I can do both easily," Hermione pulled Harry's nightgown back up over his head, tossed it on the bed, grabbed his shoulder as he blushed, "Where should I put it?"

"A little bit to the boobs," Luna looks Harry's flushed form up and down, "The rest to his thighs, hips, and butt."

"How's that?"

Harry looked down, flexed his tummy muscles.

"A little more, he wants his tummy muscles to show when he flexes."

His skin tightened a little more over his abdomen, showing some definition. He relaxed, and his tummy smoothed out, "Perfect," he said.

Luna laughed.

"I like this new shade of green," Hermione said, pulling his glasses off.

"Yes, let's keep that for now, he hasn't even noticed yet."

"What? I'm a boy, I don't pay as much attention to eye color as some people," Harry defended.

Luna stretched, which attracted both sets of eyes in the room to her pale, naked skin.

"I'm getting a feeling you'd like something, too,' Hermione raked her eyes up and down, "I'm not sure what, though."

"Do you think my tummy's too pudgy?" Luna asked.

"Nope."

"Not at all."

"It's pudgier than yours was, Harry."

"It looks better on you, you've got enough hip and breast to balance it out," he snorts, "Being told I looked like an upright frog didn't help, I'm sure. Taylor didn't like her tummy either."

"What he said."

"I just wanted to be tall enough to kiss Harry without having to go up on my toes," Luna said, "If that wouldn't be too much trouble."

"Stand up, then, let's see," Hermione said.

"See, Harry's lips to my eyeball," Luna said, "And you're lips to my nose, which is better."

"So just a little taller than me?" Hermione said, "I think that'd work fine."

~*i*~

"Tso," Hermione started, wrapped in Harry's arms in Taylor's too small bathtub.

Luna kissed the back of her neck to distract her.

"Totally blunt," she continued, refusing the distraction, "Why don't you want to be a boy again physically?"

"Think about it," Harry said, "Male role models in my life before?" he waited a moment, continued, "Danny has a daughter, and," he went quiet.

Hermione nodded, "I can understand that. My old parents? I contemplated some dumb things to keep them safe and happy."

"How's your new parents?"

"Suck."

"Monkey butts," Luna continued Hermione's answer.

"If you decide you want a male body again, just let me know."

"I will," Harry shrugged, "So long as you're with me," he trailed off again.

Luna leaned over Hermione's shoulder, and kissed Harry slowly, thoroughly, and with tongue. She broke the kiss, caught her breath, "Same."

"Always," Hermione agreed.

~*T*~


	11. Taylor 6

~*T*~

"So," Taylor asked, from Amy's side, Lisa curled up against her back, "Same sex accidental pregnancy?"

"Stir up a lot of magic," Lisa started.

"Have sex," Amy clarified.

"And think about babies. Particularly think about having babies with your partner."

"I have never thought about babies while having sex," Taylor said.

"I have," Amy curled up a bit, hiding, and continued, "Remember the first time we had sex?"

"Yeah?"

"Barely talked myself out of unprotected, get me and Lisa pregnant sex."

"You could do that?"

"Thirty second's work. Stretch some parts, a bit of spermatogenesis, poof, parahuman teen moms, if I guessed the timing right."

"So you can fix my tackle, too?"

"Yeah, ovaries are a little more difficult than a few million sperm, but it wouldn't be difficult."

"Later, if it gets too annoying."

"I need another set of kisses goodnight, now," Lisa said.

It was about twenty kisses later that they went to sleep.

~*i*~

After a very good breakfast, Lisa grabbed her bag in her left hand, snapped to attention, tapping her bare heels together, and snapped Amy a picture-perfect salute, "Permission to depart?"

Amy returned the salute, "Dismissed."

Lisa teleports with a crack like a gunshot.

Taylor thought about repeating the dog and pony show, then gave Amy a hug instead, "See you soon."

"See you."

Taylor teleported out silently, in swirl of pale blue light that clung to every surface for a few moments after she left.

~*i*~

Taylor pulled bags, boxes, and two trunks, out of her pockets, then stuffed the boxes and trunks into a bag, and put the bag in a hole in the wall of her room, hidden by her mattress. She leaned back against that wall, a book in her hands, and began to read.

~*i*~

Lisa walked boldly though the front gates of Hogwarts, up the path, and climbed the steps to the front door of the keep. It did not open at her first touch, and she frowned at it. It sagged open, and she walked through.

"Woke up this morning," she sang, not skipping, but dancing along to the pounding beat in her head, "Started to sneeze, had a cigarette and a cuppa tea," she started up the steps, smiled at a portrait, "Looked in the mirror, what did I see? A nine-stone weakling with knobbly knees. Did my knees bend, press ups, touched my toes," she twirled on the landing, "Had another sneeze and I blew my nose," started up the next flight, "I looked in the mirror at my pigeon chest, had to put on my clothes because it made me depressed," she bebopped along as the backup singers sang in her head.

"I wanna be like Superman," bob bob bob, "Wish I could fly like Superman."

She stopped in front of a bare patch of wall, gave it an Arnold Rimmer salute, then traced an elaborate pattern on the stone before stepping into it.

"Superman," she sang in the dark, "Superman. Wish I could fly like Superman."

Light floods in as a wall is pushed open, and Lisa steps out, bobbing along, silently, to the song.

A locked cabinet succumbed, after a few minutes, to her persuasion, and she pulls out a thick book, which obligingly opened where she wanted, and she smiled.

"The wood is full of shining eyes, the wood is full of creeping feet, the wood is full of tiny cries, you must not go to the wood at night," she sang as she leafed through to the next year's list, found the entry for Luna Lovegood, and pinched it between her fingers, "Showed me how to catch a lark, with a straw and a nut and a whispered word, penny worth of ginger wrapped up in a leaf," pulled it off the page, held it while she flipped back to the current year, and dropped it back onto the page, right after "Hermione Granger." The later entries shifted down to make room, and in a moment one could hardly tell a change had been made.

"He asked me my name and where I lived: I told him a name from my book of tales," Lisa stepped back into the dark passage, closing it behind her, "He asked me to come with him into the wood, and dance with the kings from under the hills."

She sang as she stepped out again, through the stone, "The wood is full of shining eyes, the wood is full of creeping feet, the wood is full of tiny cries, you must not go to the wood at night," and bounced down the stairs.

~*i*~

"Hey pretty girl," Taylor stood behind the garden shed, long owl talons pricked through her skin into her arm, and offered the snowy owl an owl treat.

The golden-eyed female on her arm took it, then made a noise something like "Pre-ek."

"A rat would be hard. I can get you as many bugs as you'd like-"

"Eck."

"How about a mouse?"

"Pre."

"It'll take me a bit," Taylor said, "Do you mind if I pet you?"

"Pre."

Taylor stroked her breast feathers with her knuckles, "Do you have a name?"

"Prek Ack Prep-prep,"

"I'd totally mangle that name. Can I call you Hermione? I don't think Amy's going to use that name much anymore."

"Eck."

"Yeah, I guess that could get confusing," Taylor bent her knees to catch the mouse as it jumped out of the grass. She grabbed it by the tail as it writhed and twisted, scratching and biting at the arthropods that drove it to captivity and death. It went limp as the fleas and mites tormenting it dropped off, too tired to react as it was offered to the owl.

The owl tilted her head, leaned forward, and cracked the mouse's spine with a quick pinch of her beak, then swallowed the dying creature whole, its tail flipping up and down as it followed the rest of the mouse into her gizzard.

"How about Minerva? Goddess of wisdom, associated with owls?"

"Eck."

"Oh, so the professor's name is Minerva. Hmm."

"Prek."

"Hedwig, huh?"

"Pre."

"Have you seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch? It's been a long time since I saw it, but you don't remind me of her at all."

"Pre-eck."

"Really, the movie doesn't come out until 2001? Huh. I thought it was a lot older than that."

~*i*~

"What happened to your arm, boy?" the heron asked.

Taylor contemplated mentioning owls, decided it was not a good idea, and went with the truth, "It got scratched while I was gardening."

"Make sure you clean it, disinfect it, and wrap it properly. I don't want to have to wipe up your blood, and we shouldn't have to pay because you get an infection by not taking care of it."

Taylor looked at the deep, slowly-seeping wounds in her arm, "I got distracted, it hardly hurts at all."

"Come on," the heron said, "Let's go clean that up."

Taylor followed. She couldn't remember the heron ever helping Harry clean his wounds.

~*T*~

Note: Lisa is mauling "Superman" by The Kinks, and "The Magic Wood" by Joan Baez


	12. Harry 6

~*T*~

"What's the matter Emma?" Harry asked, "You look upset."

Emma glared, her eyes darting to Sophia, who's leaned back next to Harry's locker, trying to be friendly.

"Are you worried that you've lost a girlfriend?" he smiled, "or are you upset that the one you have left won't put out."

"I'd nev-" Madison starts.

Harry stepped in front of her, tilted her chin up, stared down into her eyes, smiling a tiny little smile which lifted the corner of Harry's eyes, even as he thought happy, lascivious thoughts.

After nearly a minute, he asked, "Sex?" in his huskiest, breathiest voice.

"Yes," Madison answered, even as she leaned forward, going up on her toes.

"See, you just have to ask, Emma."

Sophia laughed out loud, "That was fucking awesome."

"I'm not some deviant like you, Taylor," Emma counterattacked, finally.

"No, you're a deviant who _didn't_ get laid last night. You should try it, it really improves one's mood, relieves stress, strengthens one's bonds to the ones one loves," Harry stroked his hand gently through Emma's hair, a gentle caress, "Make love not war, Emma, before someone decides you're actually a threat."

Sophia cackled, totally ruining the moment, "When did you become such an evil be-aitch?"

"When I woke up and realized that I couldn't win Emma's game."

~*i*~

"How the fu-" Madison cut herself off, "I don't think I even like girls, but," she blushed, "How did you do that? Can you teach me?"

"Luna taught me, I'll ask her if she's willing?"

"Thank you. Who's Luna?"

"One of my girls, she's decided she wants to drive a taxi."

"Really?"

"Yeah, she came by and picked me up yesterday."

"The pretty blonde with a big white molester van?"

Harry laughed, "Yep. We totally made that joke when we picked up Amy."

"Amy Dallon?"

"Let me guess, we're all over PHO."

"They have before and after memes."

Harry's lips twitched, "Really."

"Really. The answer's definitely still yes."

Harry broke out laughing.

Madison managed a face that's both sad and angry, "You asked!"

"I was demonstrating for Emma."

"Emma's certainly not as good as you."

"Eh, I'll ask Luna and Amy. Don't get your hopes up."

Madison pulled down the neckline of her shirt, exposing a little more cleavage, "Please?"

~*i*~

"It's not funny," Harry said.

Luna continued to laugh at him, "All three of the girls who were tormenting Taylor now have a crush on you."

"Ah, maybe that's funny," he smiled at her, "Madison wants to be taught the seductive eye thing."

"Let me guess - that's why she's got a crush on you."

"Yeah, I was hassling Emma, and she was collateral."

"You shouldn't," Luna sighs, "Yeah, she was treating you as collateral damage for her popularity, so," she trailed off.

"The hangers-on are all confused, and I think are trying to figure out where the in group went."

"Yeah, women are particularly prone to picking on people to try and fit in."

"Not just women, men just tend to be a little more likely to be violent about it."

Luna took her eyes off the road even as the van's body rolls back, following the swerve she made around a slower-moving motorcycle.

"Yusef Hawkins," Luna nodded, putting her eyes back on the road in time to swerve around an ugly boxy car.

Harry grabbed the panic bar to stay off the dash as Luna braked hard, let off, swung into the pickup lane at Arcadia, and braked hard, throwing Harry toward the dash again. She left the engine running, set the parking brake, and grabbed a roll of paper, which she handed to Harry, "Help me put the stickers on while we wait."

"Stickers?"

Luna cackled, nodding.

"Hold this," she said, having spread a sticker that says "Free Candy" in a nicely serifed font against the side of the van. There was a **Chunk** noise as the van, which had noticed that it was still running with the keys inside, locked itself.

Luna stepped back, then shifted the sticker, looked again, made a mark with a grease pencil. She pulled out a spirit level, and made another mark, then nodded happily.

"Stick it," she said, grabbing another sticker and heading to the other side of the van.

Harry had the sticker lined up, and was trying to get it stuck down without bubbles or creases when Hermione came out, saw what he was doing, and started laughing.

"That's going to be so much trouble," she said.

"You haven't seen the other stickers I've ordered!" Luna called from the other side of the van.

~*i*~

"I'm gonna wait in the van," Hermione sighed after watching Harry play with the sticker a moment. She grabbed the front door handle, pushed the button, and gave it a tug.

It didn't open.

"Yeah, the van locked itself. Harry can fix it, or we can call a locksmith."

"What?"

"Apparently it's a feature. I'll have to figure out how to turn it off."

~*i*~

Harry held the window gasket back as another two-inch long, winged cockroach climbed between the window and the doorframe, then back up on the inside. Four of them dive-mobbing the lock button finally unlocked the van.

~*T*~

Note: The van I saw this happen with wasn't a 2009, but it was a Ford Econoline.


	13. Taylor 7

~*T*~

"Get," the whale started, even as Taylor was hopping down, scooping the last piece of bacon off her plate.

"The mail," Taylor said, snitching the pony's last bacon strip as she passed.

She paused, finished the bacon, wiped her hands on her trousers, and picked up the mail, bill, bill, letter from Hogwarts, bill, invite to boring dinner party. She tossed the Hogwarts letter through the slats into her room as she passed, and handed the rest to the heron.

"Thank you, Harry."

Taylor blinked at her, then stole the heron's plate while she was distracted, scraping it onto her own plate and stacking it underneath.

The pony and the whale pushed their plates over as well. The whale, as always, hadn't touched his beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, or black pudding. The pony had left her a banger, a slice of toast, and she'd already finished his bacon.

The whale hid behind his newspaper until she picked up the plates to carry them to the sink.

~*i*~

"Deliver this to Minerva," Taylor told Hedwig, and held out the letter.

"Pre," Hedwig answered, nodding.

"Do you want me to tie it?"

"Eck," Hedwig grabbed it with one taloned hand, and took off. She vanished after a few wingbeats in a silent flare of blue light.

Taylor took off the old gardening jacket the heron gave her, and hung it back on its hook in the shed.

~*i*~

Lisa grabbed Taylor first, and pulled her in for a thorough snog. She pulled back, smiled at the scar, and gave it a kiss, too, "You obviously needed a lot more love and attention as a child, Mr. Riddle," and kissed it again.

"I've noticed it seems to be healing up."

"Yeah, he doesn't know how to deal with love at all," Lisa said, then sang, badly, "Love is like oxygen, you get too much, you get too high," her voice cracked painfully in the middle of the last word, "Not enough and you're gonna die."

Amy clapped her lips over Lisa's to make her stop singing.

It was a few minutes before she kissed Taylor, and her scar.

~*i*~

"Yeah, eight men, six women, two house elves," Taylor said, sitting on a tree branch next to Lisa and Amy, "Five kids, one baby. I think they're having a party."

"That'll make it hard to keep this quiet."

"Should we come back later?" Lisa asked.

"Since one of the women and two of the men seem to be locked up in a dungeon, I don't think so," Taylor said. She closed her eyes, forming a swarm-clone in the basement.

"Is this a game, or do you need a rescue?" the clone asked. Taylor couldn't see that well yet, the eyeball bugs still trying to find a way into the dark dungeon, but she could make out the woman's face as it turned towards the clone.

"Does this look like a game?" the captive asked.

"Some people enjoy the attention and pretend danger," the clone said.

"No, not a game, he killed Brad, I don't know what happened to Janet, and there were five of them down here earlier, they said they'd be back for 'fun' in a little while."

"OK, let's see if we can get you out, then."

"Send in the Bedem," Lisa said.

Taylor nodded, "Graboids should be able to tunnel in, the wardline has badger dens cutting through it."

"Bring me some biomass," Amy said, "And I need to get to the seaside before we head to Hogwarts."

Millions of bugs drove dozens of small mammals with them to Amy's waiting hands.

The four tunnelers dove, one by one, into the ground, out of sight of the Malfoy ward line.

As expected, the 'mundane' animals were ignored by the wards, ripping gaping holes into the floor of the dungeon.

"The graboids won't harm you. Get in the tunnels, follow the fireflies," the clone said

"Do you have any firefly bushes yet?" Taylor asked, "I haven't found any near your house."

"I was too busy with the Bedem, I," Amy went quiet, "Distracted myself," she said, "Get me some more biomass."

Taylor guided the captives out, dispersed her swarm clone about the dungeon, had the graboids dig to either side of the stairs into the dungeon, and flew a few thousand bugs to Amy.

"The men and one of the women are in a parlor, word-wanking what they're going to do to the captives, the other women are in a different parlor, watching the kids play outside, discussing politics."

"Hmm," Lisa frowned, thoughtfully, "See if you can bring me Malfoy alive."

"I think I can do that," Taylor said, even as she felt the first few fireflies take off, driven by their implanted instincts to disperse as widely as possible before digging in and metamorphosing into a bush.

"They should be spread all over Great Britain by the fall, and possibly Ireland," Amy said, "Total first-world problem, but do you know how hard it is to collect uranium without access to seawater?"

"I'm guessing pretty difficult."

"It took me most of a month to collect six and a half kilos for eight Bedem. Producing the antimatter was easier."

"I hope we won't need that much boom any time soon."

"Some things are hard to kill."

~*T*~

Note: Graboids are inspired by the creatures from the movie Tremors, the fireflies Amy makes are full of kerosene and thermite, and the Bedem are inspired by the bioweapons from Iczer-1, with 16 long, slimy, metal-tipped tentacles each. Each tentacle tip has a tiny amount of antimatter and 50 grams of depleted uranium, formed into a 4-ton yield explosive device.

Maxim 37: There is no "overkill." There is only "open fire" and "reload."


	14. Harry 7

~*T*~

Hermione hid her face behind her hand as the big white van labeled "Free Candy" pulled up to the park. "We're gonna get arrested."

"This is a public service announcement, with Guitars," Luna sang then said in a normal voice, "Well, candy."

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"Yup. Pull the table out, Harry," she said, as she rolled down the windows, "And the chairs, Hermione."

Luna dropped the three cases of candy bars on the table, turned back for more.

She opened the boxes and stood behind the table as a small crowd gathered.

"All right, does everyone have a parent or guardian, or a friend who's out of snatching range with a cell phone?"

All of the kids nodded.

"How about you adults?"

The adults looked around, and a couple blushed.

"That's what I thought. What's the plate number of the van?"

A couple kids edged around the front and back of the van, "001 AMK." they reported almost simultaneously.

"Good. What's your favorite?"

The front kid got a bag of M&Ms, the back kid a Milky Way.

"Why do you need to know that?"

"So we can tell the police who kidnapped our friend?"

"Yep." She got a bag of Reece's Pieces.

"Here's a hard one," Luna said, "Why do people kidnap people, adults or little kids?"

"To hold them for ransom, like pirates!" an older kid called. He got a Snickers.

"Or?"

"Because they're crazy, want a kid, and decide to steal one." She got a bag of Skittles.

"Or?"

The adults look at each other askance.

"It's illegal to have sex with someone under twelve," a girl called out, "And twelve's only legal if their partner's less than four years older. Some people decide they might as well add kidnapping to molestation and/or statutory rape." She got a Hershey Bar With Almonds.

"Or?"

"Just plain crazy, and want to eat you, or use you for parts, or just listen to you scream." He got a bag of M&Ms.

"So, do you think it's a good idea to get dragged into a windowless van by people you don't know?"

"Probably not even by people you do know!" a man at the back yelled. He got a Hershey Bar With Almonds.

"Call the cops if you see someone getting kidnapped!" yelled an older girl near the back. She got a bag of Reece's Pieces.

"Now," Hermione stood up, leaned both hands on the table, "It might seem that we're saying sex is bad. Sex with people you want to have sex with, and want to have sex with you, is pretty awesome." She grinned at her audience.

Several laughed back at her.

"If you don't want to have sex with someone, tell them no. Don't be rude about it unless they don't accept that no, but be firm. Some people have been trained that "No" means "ask me again in five minutes," so you need to make sure you don't say "Yes" just so they'll stop bugging you.

"You also shouldn't use "No" to mean "Yes" without making sure you and your partner have agreed on a word for "No."

"Don't be too harsh in your "No" unless they don't take the first "No." You might change your mind, whether the kid you said "No" to was a dweeby little geek named Bill Gates or the plain girl who's only skills are dancing and licking her eyebrows."

Luna licked her eyebrows, left, then right.

The whole crowd laughed.

Harry whinged, "You haven't made it so I can lick my eyebrows," with crossed arms and a cute pout.

The crowd laughed again.

"Any way it happens," Hermione continued, "Telling someone you'd never have sex with them in a million years makes it a lot less likely they'll say yes if you ever change your mind, much less if you're really rude."

"Why would anyone want to have sex before they're old?" a boy asked. He got a bag of Reece's Pieces.

"Well, I had people I wanted to have sex with when I was te-, twelve," Luna said, "and they wanted to have sex with me, but I didn't tell them, and they didn't tell me, so we didn't have sex until we were older. Even if you do want to, you should wait until you're legal. No one has ever died from blue balls, despite what some of the older boys may tell you."

A laugh from the adults.

"One reason not to have sex until you're legal is birth control and condoms can fail. People have gotten pregnant the first time they had sex. Condoms, when used properly, are 87% effective. That means that out of 100 couples having sex regularly, 13 will get pregnant within a year. We had at least one woman in the U.S. who was a grandmother at 21."

Several of the kids looked shocked, and a murmur of quiet conversation broke out.

"Yeah. I'm not ready to be a mother, much less a grandmother. I doubt most of you kids are ready to be parents, and I don't think your parents want to be grandparents yet. Think really hard before you have sex with anyone."

Harry called, "If you got some candy already, wait for everyone else. One candy at a time, once everyone has some candy you can check about seconds."

The kids swarm the table, and Harry turned to Hermione, "Umph, Umph," he whined pleadingly, then stuck out his tongue.

Hermione looked at him a bit side-eyed, then reached out, grabbed the tip of his tongue, and pulled it up to his eyebrow.

"Thankth, Amy," he said, "How come Luna doethn't thound funny?"

"Because I had time to practice," Luna said.

"Excuse me, miss," a little girl said, as polite as she could, "Could I get my tongue fixed instead of a candy?"

"Have a candy," Hermione told her, "If your parent or guardian says it's OK, I'll fix your tongue because you asked so nicely."

Hermione ended up pulling a lot of tongues.

~*T*~

Note: inspired by Weird Al's "That boy could dance" and a joke:

These two buddies are sitting at the bar in a singles' club and talking about another guy sitting at the other end of the bar.

"I don't get it," complained the first guy, "He's not good looking, he has absolutely no taste in clothes, and he drives a beat up wreck of a car, yet he always manages to go home with the most beautiful women here!"

"Yeah," replies his buddy, "He's not even very good conversationally, all he does is sit there and lick his eyebrows."


	15. Taylor 8

~*T*~

The girls had gotten bored by the time Malfoy and his guests finally headed to the dungeon, and were kicking their feet on their tree branch as they waited.

Taylor's swarm attacked as soon as the door at the top of the stairs closed, climbed in screaming mouths, down noses, filled lungs to the point of gasping, immobile panic.

A graboid knocked down Malfoy, separated him from his wand, and pulled him by his robe towards the tunnels.

Behind him the guests expired one by one, suffocated slowly.

~*i*~

A bakers dozen fireflies circled when Malfoy was dragged out, dirty, disheveled, his face and mouth full of dirt, his breath shallow and fast, one lung full of arthropods, the other with a few who'd gotten lost.

Taylor frowned, disappointed, then smiled. The graboid turned him over, and a small swarm of bugs climbed over his face to pick off all the loose dirt.

"Mr. Malfoy," Lisa said, grinning, "We have a mission for you, whether or not you chose to accept it."

"What?" he gasped, "Do you think I will talk?"

"No, Mr. Malfoy, I expect you to die," Amy said, dropping off the branch to the ground. She pressed a sandaled foot to his side, worked a toe through a tear in his robe. He screamed, convulsed, passed out from lack of oxygen.

"He's really resistant to pain," Lisa said, "I didn't get anything useful."

"Hmm," Amy ripped the hole in his robes bigger, then woke him up. He gasped, moaned, arching his back, clenching his thighs together.

"That's better," Lisa said, "A little pain, please. Perfect." She went quiet for a bit, "He's got something the Dark Lord left with him, something important," she smiled, "It's a soul jar, with another bit of Mr. Riddle's soul."

Malfoy lost bladder control.

"He thinks the Dark Lord will kill him for letting us find that out. In a way, he's right."

Tears have leaked down Malfoy's face, and his fingertips were bloody from digging into the rocky soil, but he kept scraping away at it.

"How to get it, that's the question. Graboids are conspicuous."

"Land crabs?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, but there's got to be a more general purpose . . . " Amy trailed off a moment, "Invid."

Lisa and Taylor looked at each other, then smiled, "Paranoids."

Amy laughed out loud, stepping back from Malfoy, who collapsed, curling into a ball, wrapping his bloody hands around his knees.

"We need to recycle the graboids anyway," Amy said, waved one of them towards her.

Taylor walked it over to her. Amy quickly formed it an exoskeleton of thick chitin, colored a dull medium grey, humanoid, with two arms, two legs, hands with fingers. She pulled the living cells out and formed it into an amorphous blob of muscles, nerves, a decentralized brain, and attachments.

Taylor had it squirm back into its exoskeleton. It shook itself, waved its arms and legs, ran through something much like a tai chi routine to acclimate itself to its new shape, then it took off at an awkward run that smoothed as it dove into the tunnels and ran toward the Malfoy dungeons.

Lisa's directions opened the vault under the drawing room, and the paranoid ran back with the dark lord's treasure.

Amy, meanwhile, had her hands back on Malfoy.

"Whatcha doing?"

"You're gonna fill his chest with fireflies," Amy said, "So I thought it would be nice to have his dark mark catch fire, too."

"Oh, that'd be lovely."

Taylor brought up the other graboids, "What do you want to do with these?"

"Cowbells," Amy said, suiting action to words, and quickly changed the graboids into clouds of giant, high-explosive beetles.

"So, how are we going to use him?"

"I think the paranoid can puppet him to the Ministry of Magic," Amy said.

The paranoid bobbed it's torso, since it didn't have a mobile neck to its armor, then put both of its thumbs up.

"Go for it," Taylor told it.

It climbed out of its exoskeleton, and blobbed, like an amoeboid inch worm, over to Malfoy's curled, crying form.

Malfoy tried to scream as the paranoid climbed down his throat. He clutched at his throat, turned a little blue, then went limp. A few minutes later Malfoy started twitching, then wiggled a bit, then got to his feet. He made some strange noises, then words, "It's nice to be able to talk," the paranoid said softly.

Taylor landed the 13th firefly on the paranoid's abandoned exoskeleton.

The paranoid made Malfoy watch as Taylor lit the firefly. The chitin stunk as it burned, the thermite dripped though to the ground, and burned into it.

"Yeah, like that," Lisa told him.

The paranoid held Malfoy's mouth open while the other twelve fireflies climbed inside.

"You know the script?" Lisa asked.

"Yes," said the paranoid.

"This doesn't have to, shouldn't be, a suicide mission. Come back when you can," Amy told it.

It nodded Malfoy's head.

"If you can learn how to teleport you'll make it back quicker," Taylor said.

A big grin crossed Malfoy's face, and he vanished with a **pop** , reappearing a few feet away with another **pop**. He disappeared with another **pop**.

~*T*~

Note: Cowbells resemble _Goliathus Orientalis_ in size, shape and markings, but are colored to camouflage with the local environment. They also have an explosive yield equivalent to 30 grams of RDX.

Invid are, of course, from Genesis Climber Mospeada, which was used for the third part of Robotech.

The paranoid is inspired by the Paranoids from "Gal Force: Eternal Story." There is a scene about 15 minutes in where several Paranoids change their skeletons.


	16. Harry 8

~*T*~

"Amy would be so pissed with you," Hermione said, loading the last of the chairs back into the van.

"Oh?"

"Totally outed me as more than "just" a healer."

"Maybe, maybe not. You just healed my tongue from being too short," Harry smiled, "Hey, I didn't lithp that time. Shite."

"You've almost got the hang of it," Luna said before she leaned up and licked his nose.

"Soon, I hope."

~*i*~

Hermione walked up to the old woman, "Let me help you with that," she said, holding out her hand.

She clutched her bag of groceries tighter, hunched over a little more, scowled, "I've got it, thank you, dear."

Hermione smiled at her, "My name is Amy, and I am not so hard up as to steal groceries from old ladies," she said, "I saw that this isn't easy for you, and would like to help."

She obviously thought about it a moment.

Hermione held out a bare arm, the weather warm enough for March that her t-shirt doesn't stick out too much.

"Thank you, dear," she said, and tucked her hand under Hermione's, the shopping bag slipping down her arm, "My name's Martha."

"Where are we going, Martha?"

~*i*~

"Let's go meet my team," Luna said, as they climbed into the van after Hermione's hospital shift.

"Sure."

"I won't have to heal anyone, will I?"

"Not unless you can, and want to, fix Rachel's power-damage."

~*i*~

"So, this is Brian, Alec, and Rachel. They're my team, paid by Coil, and like me without a way out. I was recruited at gunpoint, Coil's promising Brian help with his sister's custody, Alec needs to stay under the radar and away from his dad, and Rachel's wanted for murder from her trigger."

"Taylor, or Harry. I control bugs."

"Amy, or Hermione. I heal people."

"Yeah, call me Luna. Lisa was nice while it lasted, but it's time to move on."

"You gave out a lot of our secrets just now."

"Coil has no intention of losing his leverage over you, so I'm just letting him know that if he doesn't leave town, he's going to be backed into such a tight corner he'll never get out of it."

"Really?"

"Yup," Luna smiled, "He's got this place bugged, but not rigged to blow, unlike his lair."

Luna's phone rang.

She laughed, "Yeah, you want to threaten my girls, and my team, Thomas."

Her phone stopped ringing.

"I called you in to Piggot and Reinke this morning, your friendship with the chief director won't save you this time."

Her phone rang again, "I called Legend, too. He's already disillusioned about the chief director, and quite willing to bring his team after you."

Her phone stopped ringing again.

~*i*~

"So," Luna told her team, "Rich now."

"So you're taking over the Undersiders?"

"If you want to be heroes I'll keep paying you. Corporate heroes, show up, look pretty, get paid. Free lawyers."

"What for?"

"Get Rachel cleared. Get Brian custody of Aisha. Arrange clemency for Hijack."

Alec leaned back, clearly thinking. Brian frowned. Rachel looked confused, "They know I'm here, and haven't bothered me. I don't need any help."

"If you get cleared, we can set you up a charity, and then your dogs will have plenty of room, and people to look after them."

"So, the lawyers can get me money for my dogs."

"Yes," Luna answered.

"Do it."

"What she said," Alec said.

"Yeah," Brian nodded.

~*i*~

"May I?" Hermione held out her hand to Rachel.

"What?"

"See what your powers have done to you?"

"Look only," Rachel said, taking Hermione's hand, "No fixing without talking."

Hermione nodded, "Luna said you weren't good at talking."

"I never was," Rachel said, "It got better. Now I can talk to dogs real good, people," she shook her head, "People are fucking weird."

"Yeah, I can see that. I can help your brain build up the parts that are supposed to understand humans, without damaging the parts that understand dogs. You'll need to eat your livers, kidneys, hearts, and spleens, though."

"You're not telling me to eat more veggies?"

"Those are important, too, but the livers and kidneys will help you more right now."

"You're just going to help me understand people?"

"If that's what you want."

"Yeah."

"OK. Eat more liver and kidneys, talk to people. As your brain builds up the parts, you'll need to train it to understand people. Luna will find you some, and once your warrants are pulled we'll get you time in public."

"I don't like people."

"That's OK, but understanding them will help you deal with them."

"Good."

~*i*~

"Two down, three to go," Luna said happily, swinging into the driver's seat of her van.

"Gangs?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded, buckling up in the passenger seat.

"Parents?" Luna asked, looking at Hermione.

"Sure," Hermione sighed, "These ones kinda suck. Worse than my dentists, and they weren't that much better than your aunt, Harry."

~*T*~

Note: Luna was talking about the deputy director, and mispronounced his name on purpose.


	17. Taylor 9

~*T*~

Malfoy walked out of the floo into the atrium of the Ministry of Magic, clutching his left forearm in his right hand. His hair was disheveled, and he was pale, short of breath, eyes wide.

"Mr. Malfoy, can I help you?" the attendant hurried from behind the wand-check desk.

"Bones," Malfoy gasped, "Madam Bones," gasp, "Get her," gasp, "Get Fudge," gasp, "Here," wheeze, "By the statue."

The attendant dashed back to the desk, even as Malfoy staggered to lean against the statue of magical brethren. A crowd gathered, staring.

Madam Bones hurried in first, "What's going on?"

"Good," Malfoy wheezed.

"Why did you call us, Mr. Malfoy?" Madam Bones' tone was much less respectful than the attendant's.

"Hard," gasp, "To talk," gasp, "Fudge."

"Lucius," Fudge gasped when he saw the man leaning weakly against the statue.

Malfoy nodded, "The Dark Lord," gasp.

Gasps sounded from the crowd, too.

Malfoy waited for quiet, "is upset," gasp, "to see," gasp, "his followers," gasp, "eat, drink," gasp, "and make merry," gasp, "while he," gasp, "languishes," gasp, "in exile."

"He is dead!" Fudge yelled.

"No body," gasp, "no wand," gasp. "He returns."

Malfoy's left arm snapped out to the side, which ripped the sleeve off his robe to show the deep green tattoo of the Dark Mark. The green started to glow red, accompanied by a smell of cooking meat, then smoke obscured the mark as it burned.

Malfoy opened his mouth, and screamed. The scream cut off abruptly as a smell of kerosene and a burst of flame escaped his mouth, a bit of smoke out his nose, and he fell forward. Sizzling and popping noises escaped, along with puffs of smoke, from under his still-twitching corpse.

~*i*~

"Malfoy's wand cast the Dark Mark over his house," the Auror says, running a hand through his thinning hair, "The women didn't hear anything, didn't know there was anything wrong until one of the children saw the Mark."

"The guests in the basement?" Bones asked.

"All marked. All suffocated slowly as their lungs filled with bugs."

"Were they forced in?"

"No, they crawled in, it looks like. Perhaps attracted by a potion that made the victim's lungs, and thus their breath, extraordinarily attractive to the bugs."

"Any sign of such a potion? Or them being forced to drink it?"

"It is very likely they came down here to, how did Malfoy put it, "Make merry,"" his lips turned down, "The prisoners were taken, likely by whatever dug the tunnels through the wards."

"Through?"

"Yes, through. The marks are most consistent with large dogs."

"Put the dogs under the Imperius, make them dig, then Vanish them when he was done," Bones nodded, agreeing.

"Dogs would account for the tooth patterns on Malfoy's robes," Dawlish said, nodding, "And the drag damage."

"Go on."

"Use a smaller dog, with a confundus, to get the victims to drink the potion. Capture Malfoy, drag him out of the wards, torture him, then send him to the Ministry with his message."

"And the women?"

"None of them were marked."

"So the Dark Lord is cleaning house, starting with his richest followers," Bones' lips twitched, then her face settled into a studied seriousness, "We should make sure the rest of his followers know that he might be coming for them. Have the Profit publish a warning, with all of the marked Death Eater's names and addresses, to make sure they are notified."

Dawlish blinked, his lips turned up, then he got serious and he nodded, "I'll get right on it, boss!"

~*i*~

 **Published Under Orders From the Minister of Magic!**

Screamed the headline, then, in only slightly smaller letters, **Dark Lord Returns! Warns Death Eaters he "Is upset to see his followers eat, drink, and make merry while he languishes in exile."**

Below that was a picture of Malfoy Manor, with the Dark Mark hovering over it.

Taylor read the article, and began to laugh.

~*i*~

Amy balanced a giant figeater beetle, iridescent green and yellow, about two inches long and an inch and a half wide, on her fingertip, checking it over again, and smiled. She put it on her arm, and pressed it towards her. It chirped. She pressed it two more times, getting another two chirps, and then it bit her.

Amy cackled as the CommBeetle lapped up the blood welling slowly from the bite.

~*i*~

Lisa giggled as the CommBeetle flew, swirling, awkward, slow, and held out a hand.

It landed awkwardly on her palm, and she chivied it up her arm, and gave it three presses.

~*i*~

Taylor felt the spreading CommBeetle network days before she saw anyone in Little Whinging with one.

~*T*~

Note: The references to the Daily Prophet newspaper as the Profit are intentional and disparaging by the various speakers.

And CommBeetles!


	18. Harry 9

~*T*~

"Carol Dallon," Hermione gestured, hand up at head height, slightly cupped, a picture of teenaged disdain, at the woman, "Mark Dallon," a matched gesture indicated the man.

He gave half a wave at the introduction.

"Vicky," this gesture is more shoulder-height, but hardly more respectful.

"Luna," Hermione pointed with her chin, and Luna bowed, flourished an imaginary hat.

"And Taylor," she pointed with her chin again, and Harry curtsied, the gesture, as always, looking a little silly in trousers.

Hermione crossed her arms, shoulders back, feet spread, glaring.

"Oh my god! They're adorable!" Vicky gushed, darting over.

Harry brought his hands up, took a step back, hands open, palms forward, right hand back, knees bent.

Luna had her fists up, one up to guard her face, the other back by her chest, even as she took three, quick, low steps toward Hermione.

"And so protective!" Vicky crossed her own fists at her breast, hugged herself with a joyous wiggle, "No wonder you always hated the dates I dragged you on!"

Carol looked at her daughters, looked at Amy's girlfriends who had relaxed a little, but still had their hands up, met Amy's glare, and began to cry.

Hermione blinked, stared, her arms relaxing, completely nonplussed.

~*i*~

Mark had made hot chocolate, and everyone was seated at the kitchen table. Carol was at one end, Mark at the other. Vicky was on one long side, and Hermione was on the other, with Harry and Luna to either side.

"I'm sorry," Carol said, after a few minutes of silently staring into her mug.

"What for?" Hermione asked after a while.

"I was too busy waiting for you to turn into your father to remember you were just a kid, with her own hopes, dreams, and ambitions."

Hermione blinked at her confused, "What are you talking about?"

"You know you're adopted, right?"

"I hoped I was adopted."

Carol flinched, "I deserve that," she took a sip, stared into her mug, "Your father was Marquis. We attacked his house one night, used you as a hostage when he stepped in front of the closet you were hidden in to protect you," she went silent again.

Luna stared, glancing around the table a minute, then burst out, "You fucking idiots! You attacked the least-bad villain in town, in his own house, stole his daughter, and then unmasked?" Only Hermione's having quickly grabbed her hair kept Luna from banging her head on the table, "You're lucky to have only lost Fleur."

Carol looked like she wanted to protest.

Mark nodded sadly, "We were lucky. Do you think the Teeth would have given us Vicky back intact if they were using her as a hostage?"

Carol's face fell like a three-year-old's, and she sobbed on the table. Mark got up, walked around behind Vicky, and gathered his wife into his arms.

Hermione blinked, conflicted, at them, eyes shiny. Harry gathered her in his arms, and Luna gave her a kiss on the temple.

"Don't worry," Luna said softly, "It'll take a lot more than this for her to stop being the paranoid bitch you know so well."

~*i*~

"There is a tradition, you may have noticed," Carol started. She went silent, hid her face behind her hands, clasped around her mug.

Hermione, cuddled into Harry's lap, protective arms around her waist, eventually said "A tradition?"

"Not to talk about one's trigger events," Carol went silent again.

"Probably part of why we have so many messed up parahumans," Luna said, "We're really designed to share our problems."

"Maybe," Carol sighed, stared into her cup.

Harry sighed as well, "My best, kinda only, friend turned on me the summer before high school. She was popular, and I cared too much, was hurt by her behavior. They let up after Thanksgiving, then, when I got back at the beginning of January, I found they had filled my locker with used feminine hygiene products, which were decomposing, but not enough, still smelled like blood, and rotting meat, and the bugs," he shrugged, clutched Hermione tighter, "Slammed my head into the back of the locker hard enough to give me a concussion, shoved me in, locked the door behind me, left laughing. I puked sometime about then," he shrugged again, "And proceeded to freak the fuck out, and triggered over it. I mostly don't remember anything from then until I got a handle on things in the hospital a week later."

"It wasn't being kidnapped, or the weeks of imprisonment, those were just setup, it was the feeling of betrayal when I realized that the kidnapper who'd been nicest to us was just as bad as the rest of them," Carol smiled a smile that came no where near her eyes, "And I feel so dumb for being surprised, for expecting, no, believing, a kidnapper wouldn't be an . . . " she trailed off. "It was almost thirty years ago, I should be over it by now."

"Some things just have to be shared and accepted," Luna said, "I'd almost use normalized, but that's not quite the right word."

~*i*~

Carol hugged Luna, then Harry, then, with a noticeable flinch, Hermione, "I suck. I suck really a lot. I should have been a better mother."

Hermione nodded, stiff in Carol's arms.

"I want to do better. I'll try to do better. Will you let me?" Carol squeezed her tighter.

"Yes," Hermione said in a small voice. She relaxed a little, hugged Carol back, a gentle squeeze.

~*T*~


	19. Taylor 10

~*T*~

"Yaxley," Hermione said, read off the sign on the front gate, as the faint blue glow from Taylor's teleport faded quickly in the sunlight.

"Only one with a dungeon," Taylor said, "Or only one with people in their dungeon."

"Other people?"

"Nope, just him, and his four involuntary guests. He's adjusted his wards, no animals in or out."

"What are we going to do?"

"Bring them down," Lisa said, "Ripple-fire them, to create destructive resonance."

Cowbells converged on the wards by the dozens, by the hundreds.

 **BOOM. BA-BOOM. BOO-BOO-BOO-BOO-BOO-M.**

The explosions started with a single cowbell, then three, rapidly increased into a steady, rolling thunder of high explosives, then faded away.

Inside the house, a man had his hands over his mouth and nose. He breathed shallowly, already a tiny bit blue. The intermittent, painful stings and bites kept him from concentrating enough to apparate.

 **BOOM**. **BOOM**.

A cowbell blew in the front window, and another opened the door.

Amy tilted Yaxley's head back, and Lisa smiled, "Oh, your friends have been over? That's nice to know. The auror's have a watch on your house? Really? How come they didn't - oh, you've shared? With who? He's not as pain-resistant, could you, thank you, Amy, no, you aren't going to live through this, the easier you make this the quicker your death. You don't want to die like Malfoy, burned alive from inside? Tell me what I want to know. Money, codes, safe houses, everything, of course. Oh, you have floo passwords? The Dark Lord had a password? In parseltongue? I think that earns you a quick death, what do you think, Amy? Taylor?"

Taylor landed a cowbell on Yaxley's face. His eyes crossed, trying to look at it.

"Yes, I think a quick death would be a suitable reward," Amy let go, stepped back.

 **BOOM**.

Lisa picked up Yaxley's wand, "Can we release the prisoners?"

"They're chained, so not without showing ourselves," Taylor said.

 **BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.**

 **BOOM. BOOM.**

"They should be found, now."

Lisa cast the Dark Mark from Yaxley's front step, dropped his wand, and they teleported away.

~*i*~

"We were on-scene within 30 seconds of the Dark Mark being cast," the auror said, "Yaxley asked us to monitor, because he was afraid he'd be a target."

"The neighbors mentioned thunder on a clear day," Director Bones stated, "Why didn't you respond then?"

"I set up a magic-detection charm, and went to get a sandwich, because I was hungry. I'd been gone maybe seven minutes, and had just gotten my sandwich when the charm triggered. I apparated back, and found the Mark over his house, the wards down, him dead of an apparent blasting curse to the face, and a blasted-open dungeon with four prisoners."

~*i*~

Dolohov collapsed backward, grabbing for the giant beetle that landed on his face.

 **BOOM**.

~*i*~

"Ten out of seventy, today," Director Bones told Minister Fudge and Chief Warlock Dumbledore, "I think he is worried they'll run."

"He can call them back, and track them, using the Dark Mark on their arm," Dumbledore said, stroking his beard, "Why would he be worried about them getting away?"

"Maybe he thinks it would be, undignified, maybe, if he had to chase them?"

"And all of them have died from explosive curses or that unknown fire potion," Dumbledore shook his head, "He used to favor the Unforgivables."

"He may know, Malfoy knew, that we modified his Taboo to pinpoint the use of the torture and killing curses."

"I still think we should have watched for the Imperius," Fudge said, "But the Unspeakables could only stretch the Taboo so far, and Bagnold insisted on the torture curse."

Dumbledore nodded, "I thought the Imperius was a bigger threat myself, but Crouch backed Bagnold."

"Can the Unspeakables adjust the Taboo again, or will it break?"

"I don't know," Fudge said, "I'll have them look into it."

"We should keep this out of the papers," Dumbledore said, "We don't want to start a panic over so many prominent citizens being murdered."

"No, we don't want that," Fudge agreed fervently, "Talk to Lovegood, please. The Prophet won't publish anything like this unless we tell them to, but I'll have a word with the editor to make sure."

Dumbledore nodded, "I will talk to Xenophilius."

~*i*~

 **Comm Beetle Menace?**

London: The streets are full of them, and they're on more and more shirts every day. They provide an alternative phone network, and speak in Majel Barrett's voice. Many people have asked what they want, why they have been released, and who makes money off free communications.

When they go through their setup routine, they won't assign a contact number until the Terms and Conditions are agreed to. Ask a Comm Beetle to read these Terms and Conditions, or read the copy we transcribed on Page 3, and the answers to those questions become readily apparent.

The first few pages are normal enough legalese, describing the relationship between the User and Hebert Communications, limiting the user's rights to interfere with the service, troll other users, and so on. After that it becomes more interesting.

All communications are recorded, and some are monitored, for "Training and Quality Assurance." The Comm Beetle listens and watches, both for voice commands and for "user safety."

The user grants Taylor, Amy, and Luna Hebert a limited power of attorney, including the right to call Police, Child Protective, or Emergency services for the user, and custody of the user's minor children at the discretion of the Heberts.

We talked with our legal department, and it would be difficult to enforce these terms in court, but until they are challenged, they are presumed valid.

So, the question becomes, do you trust Hebert Communications? And more importantly, how far do you trust Taylor, Amy, and Luna? Only time will tell if our trust is misplaced.

~*T*~


	20. Harry 10

~*T*~

"Why are we waking up in the van again?" Harry asked, as he cuddled closer to Luna.

"Because I wanted to have sex with you two, and didn't want my kidnapper-parents, your dad, or Luna's team in the same building listening when we did."

"One of us should have learned a wandless silencing spell."

"One of us will learn a wandless silencing spell. Just not within a time period that I'm willing to forego sex for," Hermione leaned over Luna, and gave Harry a morning-breath kiss.

He carded his fingers through her hair, then sat up, crossed his legs, tailor-, he snorted, style, and started to take his pigtails out.

Luna looked at Hermione, who nodded, and they pounced Harry before he got too far.

~*i*~

"So," Harry said, pulling out a notebook, and turning it to a blank page, "What's next?"

In the center of the page he wrote "Rule Brockton Bay with an Iron Fist" before he drew a big circle around it. In the upper left he wrote "Destroy the gangs" with Undersiders, Coil, Merchants, ABB, and E88 under it, indented a little. He crossed out Undersiders and Coil.

"Co-Opt the Protectorate, PRT, and BBPD," Luna said. Harry wrote that down.

"PR," Hermione said, "We need to appear legitimate if we are going to stay in power once we seize it."

Harry wrote down PR, then asked, "Why aren't you protesting taking over this time?"

"The Wizarding World was such a crapsack that I could no longer see any way of making it better without killing everyone."

"Not everyone," Luna protested, "75% should have sufficed."

"Yeah, ignoring the idiots seemed much more fun than trying to rule them," Hermione said.

"But these guys seem worth conquering?"

"We're not going to conquer them," Hermione smiled, "We are going to save them."

Luna laughed, "I don't think that difference is a difference."

Harry just laughed.

~*i*~

"Empire 88," Harry nodded, "I can hear through my bugs, but my range is still pretty small," he sighed, "We'd get noticed hanging around them to listen, even if we weren't driving a big white van labeled "Free Candy.""

"Let me see one of your bugs," Hermione said.

Harry dropped a spider down into Hermione's hand on a line of webbing. It lifted a foreleg and waved at her.

"Do that again!"

Harry had the spider wave, then dance a bit, "Drivin' that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed."

The spider twisted, nauseatingly, then painfully, then, poof, his range expanded, "You got it."

"Hmm," Hermione said, then the spider thinned, lengthened, grew wings, and flew out of the van, "It'll plant itself, and grow range-extender bushes."

Luna got to her first, and snogged her thoroughly.

Harry waited impatiently until Luna pulled back, short of breath, then snogged Hermione himself.

~*i*~

Hermione knelt, one knee on the ground, and clicked her tongue, "Hey there," she said, "Come here, old lady," she cajoled.

The boney old cat gave her a look, and flicked her tail.

Hermione clicked a couple times, holding out her hand.

The old cat flicked her tail again, then walked, a little gingerly, over, sniffed Hermione's hand, and allowed a pet.

"Let's see," Hermione told her, gathering the cat gently into her arms, "Malnutrition, old age, spayed," she scratched under the cat's chin, on the white side.

The calico purred, leaning into the caress.

"That should take care of the arthritis, and," the cat turned her head, wanting the other side of her face scratched, "This should help with the malnutrition," she scratched the white side again, "That should let me find you in a while to check on you."

She pet the cat for a few more minutes, until the calico decided it was time to be on her way. Hermione watched the cat walk smoothly away, and smiled.

~*i*~

Luna circled, fists up to guard her head, breath a little roughened, but steady.

Harry circled the other way, palms forward, also breathing a little hard.

Luna darted forward, trying to get inside Harry's longer reach, striking with hard, straight blows.

Harry countered with sweeping, circular deflections, pushed Luna's right fist down and across her body to the side with one hand as his other followed towards her face.

Luna got her left fist over and intercepted the strike, even as she stepped back and to the left, faded with the blow. Her right foot followed, right knee nearly to her chin. Her right fist came up high, drew Harry's eyes, and her right heel took him in the solar plexus, winding him even as it pushed him back.

~*i*~

They bounced along the boardwalk, well, Luna bounced, Harry and Hermione walked, mostly, occasionally skipped when Luna cajoled them enough.

Luna window shopped for all three of them. She dragged them into various stores to look at things, or occasionally coerced them into trying things on.

"No," Hermione said, looking at the red straw hat, "I ain't gonna do it."

"Please?" Luna said, her eyes watery and big. Her lips trembled, and she whimpered almost inaudibly. She held the hat up, and sniffled.

"Fine," Hermione huffed, putting on the hat and looking in the mirror, "Creep."

Luna smiled and laughed, "I knew that'd look good on you." She leaned in and gave Hermione a kiss on the lips.

Hermione clutched her fingers in Luna's hair, pulled her closer, and deepened the kiss.

Hermione paid for, and wore out of the store, the hat.

~*T*~


	21. Taylor 11

~*T*~

"It's been a week," Fudge said, "Since anyone's been killed by the Dark Lord."

"Eighty-five dead, and three names on the list are still alive," Dumbledore said. He put down the report again, folded his hands to keep from fidgeting with it.

"All three claim to deeply regret what they did to become Death Eaters, and what they did in the Dark Lord's service," Bones said, "Apparently the Dark Lord considers that punishment enough."

"Why?" Fudge asked, "Why let them live, and kill the ones who believe as he does?"

"Maybe," Dumbledore paused, shook his head, "Maybe it was because they believed in the cause, but didn't search him out in his exile, didn't come look for him?"

"So these three lived because they didn't want the Dark Lord back, so they didn't look, but the others wanted the Dark Lord back, but didn't look?" Fudge shook his head, "Crazy. Crazy as following a Dark Lord who wants to rule the world when you already do."

"What do you mean?" Bones asked.

"That's why I couldn't believe that Lucius was a Death Eater voluntarily," Fudge shook his head again, "He was rich enough to buy any vote he wanted in the Wizengamot, and could generally talk enough of them to his way of thinking that he never had to. Anything he wanted, he could have for the asking, or at worst the paying," Another shake of his head, "Why would he risk his life, his prestige, his family name, to follow a murderer on such a painful, bloody path."

"Some people like hurting others," Bones said, "Enjoy the feeling of power they get from it."

"There's three clubs down in Knockturn Alley for people like that," Fudge protested, "You go in, you find someone who enjoys it, and everyone goes home happy, maybe sore, but nothing worse than disappointed."

"Some people aren't happy unless other people are unhappy," Dumbledore said sadly.

"Crazy," Fudge said.

~*i*~

"Hello, Tom," Lisa greeted the diary, before giving it a kiss.

Amy kissed Taylor, then the almost-gone scar on her forehead.

Taylor accepted the diary from Lisa, gave it a kiss and a hug, and handed it to Amy, who gave it a pat before putting it in her cargo pocket.

Lisa rubbed her forehead on Taylor's, "Resistance is futile, Tom, you will be assimilated. You won't die, you won't be forgotten, we won't leave you. You will be part of Taylor, and we'll love you forever."

Taylor gasped, clutched Lisa tight, "He gave up," she said, her eyes watered, then she started to sob.

"What's wrong?"

Taylor just shook her head, holding Lisa and groping for Amy.

Amy cuddled them while Taylor cried.

~*i*~

"He's weakening," Lisa said, "But he's full of pain," she paused, clarified, "He's made of pain."

"He knows so much," Amy said.

"This one is only 16, and he just accidentally killed the girl he had a crush on with a giant snake before getting stuck in a book," Taylor said, "But he wasn't happy, even before that."

"If you assimilate him, it'll hurt."

"I can handle pain," Amy sighed, "I don't want to, but I'll do it."

"Assimilating the part in her scar made _Taylor_ cry," Lisa said.

"Practice for childbirth?" Amy half-joked.

"Entirely different sort of pain," Lisa said.

Amy nodded, then kissed the diary again, "Even if it hurts, I'll assimilate you, add your magical and technological distinctiveness to my own, and you will never be alone again. You will be part of me, and Lisa and Taylor will love us forever."

The diary twitched in her hands.

~*i*~

The heron gave Taylor another hug, and a kiss on the forehead.

"Have fun at magic school," the pony said, "I'll miss you."

The whale opened his mouth, closed it again, and settled for patting Taylor on the back.

Taylor looked at all of them, silently, for a long moment before nodding and backing through the barrier onto platform 9 3/4s.

Lisa threw an arm about her waist.

"What's wrong?" Lisa asked.

"You know."

"You don't, so tell me, so you can figure it out."

"They were," she took a deep breath, "Nice. It's really creepy."

"Man, she was so nice, lord, she was lovey-dovey," Lisa sang, horribly off-key, and off-tempo too.

"But I didn't pay my rent, or tell them I would."

"What changed since you met Hermione and I?"

Taylor's hand jumped to her scar, "He got weaker, the more love he was around."

"And he couldn't hurt you directly, but all that pain? All that hate? Radiating in all directions?"

"They felt it, and reflected it back," Taylor stopped, turned in Lisa's arms, "As he got weaker, they got nicer."

"Yeah."

Amy grabbed them, lips trembling, eyes watering, "On the train, now," she said.

They bustled onto the train, one of them on either side of her, and found a compartment. Taylor sealed the door.

Amy waved her over, sobbing.

"He gave up?"

"When I saw the train. The first time he saw the Express? That's the happiest he'd ever been. The happiest he ever was."

Amy cuddled to them, crying, until she finally fell asleep.

~*i*~

A terribly large man, who's beard was nearly as wild as Amy's hair, was calling, "First Years, First Years, Over here!"

Amy, still red-eyed, let herself be led over. They walked down a steep, slightly slippery boat ramp, and the big man waved at the small fleet of coracles, "No more than four to the boat!" he called. Taylor helped her wives into one of the little round boats, and a slightly pudgy boy tumbled in after them.

"Sorry," he said, "'M Neville Longbottom."

"Harry Potter," Taylor said.

"Luna Lovegood," Lisa raised her hand, "Our distraught friend is Hermione Granger."

"Nice to meet you," Neville said.

"Likewise," Taylor answered.

The boats had started moving sometime while they were talking, and they slid easily over the smooth, ish, lake water.

The group rounded a promontory, and the castle came into view. Taylor's heart twinged, and she returned Amy's hard, desperate, hug.

"What's wrong?" Neville asked.

"It's so pretty," Amy answered.

Lisa leaned against them, her arm about their shoulders, and nodded.

~*T*~


	22. Harry 11

~*T*~

"That's just," Harry shakes his head, tempted, for a moment, to bang his head on something.

"What's up?" Hermione asked, turning from where she and Luna are tracing the building plan Harry laid out in mites.

"Kaiser is Max Anders, of Medhall."

"Joy."

"Even better?" Harry asked.

"What's even better, Harry?" Luna took the prompt.

"Kayden Anders, Purity, has been trying to go straight without being targeted by E88. She has a two-year-old, Aster, who Max has been using for leverage. Custody."

Hermione pulled out her phone, dialed, "Mom?"

"She teared up," Harry said softly.

Hermione blinked, "Yeah, I've got a line on a bit of lawyer-heroing you might be interested in. Purity? She shares a child with Kaiser, and needs custody help, because she wants to be a hero." Hermione nodded, "I knew she hadn't been seen with the rest of the E88 crew, but I only just found out why. If you can help with the legal side," Hermione nodded again, "Yeah, my girls and I are working on the Nazis. If we can get Purity on our side, or just off the board?"

"Thank you, Mom. Love you, too."

~*i*~

Monday morning Harry walked into school, Luna at her side. Emma watched from the reduced "in-crowd," Sophia hadn't arrived on the bus yet, and Madison's eyes lit up at the sight of them.

Madison bounced to a stop in front of Luna, hands clasped under her chin, looking up through her eyelashes in cute pleading, "Can you teach me? I'll do _whatever_ ," she fluttered her eyelashes, "You want. Anything you want to do to my nubile young body," she husked, a little red dusted her cheeks and made her ears burn, "Please," she leaned forward, "Help me, Luna-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."

Luna's lips twisted, then she broke out laughing, gave the little brunette a one-armed hug, "Taylor's right, you are kinda cute."

Madison threw her arms around Luna, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, bouncing happily to punctuate.

Harry tightened his lips, trying to keep a straight face, then burst out laughing, and wrapped both of them in a hug.

"What?" Sophia said from behind them, "A group hug without me?" and wrapped her arms around the three of them. Harry's eyes bulged a bit in shock.

~*i*~

"I think Emma's gonna cry," Madison said.

Harry was leaned back against his locker while he ate his lunch. Madison was sitting down a couple lockers away, repacking her lunch bag, have already finished.

He glanced at the redhead, who did look distraught, "Maybe you should give her a kiss?"

"I don't know," she played with her bag, "She's so mean sometimes."

"Part of that is that she's scared. Not sure how much, or why, but a chunk of that is defensive."

"You'll help me if I need it?"

Harry nodded, "I'll come to your rescue if you need it."

"Wish me luck," Madison requested, standing.

"Luck."

Madison walked up to Emma, and wrapped her hands around her head, held her still. Emma stared down into Madison's eyes with the occasional twitch as she got more and more uncomfortable, her hands on Madison's shoulders.

"Kiss me?" Madison asked.

Emma leaned forward, her hands slid over Madison's back as she pulled the smaller girl into a hug, and their lips met.

Harry finished his lunch, packed up his lunch bag, and left the girls to their snog.

~*i*~

Hermione grabbed the old man's hand, "If nothing changes, you're gonna die in a few months, and it'll cost about four hundred thousand dollars."

"That's what we figured," he sighed, fingers trembling, "Can you get me out of here? Get me a taxi home? I can find a cheaper way to die."

"I can do better than that, if you want," Hermione tells him, "But you need to know that there is a non-zero risk of it going horribly, and probably painfully, wrong."

"Expensive?" a crooked smile twists his wrinkled brown face.

"No, just experimental, and you might not like the primary effects."

"Primary effects?"

"You know the old X-men comics?"

"Yeah, I read a few to my kids."

"Wolverine's big thing was the healing factor, and I'm trying to replicate it."

"So I'd be an old man forever?"

"Once it works, about twenty-five to thirty-five."

"So, unaging, heals fast, growing younger for a while," he sighs, "Unless I turn into a blob of goo."

"Pretty much," Hermione nods.

"My wife's still doing better than me, but she's always been tough."

"One at a time, but I wouldn't want to leave you alone."

"Yeah, let's see how this works, then, please."

~*i*~

"Alabaster and Hookwolf will be here tonight," Harry told Rachel, "The dogs will get here at seventeen, and the fights are supposed to start at eighteen."

"Seventeen and eighteen?"

"Five and six PM."

"Oh, so you don't have the same time twice a day. Why doesn't everyone use that?"

"Because they're dumb."

Rachel nodded, "You want to catch everyone?"

"I do. I want you to get the dogs out, and keep the people in. Can you do that?"

"I can."

"Then we wait," Harry said. Luna and Hermione nodded from their corners of the mostly abandoned warehouse.

~*i*~

Hookwolf fell to a stunner before he finished forming his metal shell.

Alabaster dropped, head wrapped in an oxygen-excluding bubblehead charm. He flickered every few seconds.

"Hello, this is Amy Dallon, my team and I have captured Alabaster and Hookwolf at a dogfight they were planning. I've got about a hundred and eighty paying customers as well, who should be good for a hefty fine each, at the very least. If you could get here in less than half an hour, so we don't have to worry about the rest of E88 showing up while you get everyone loaded? That would be _great_ , thank you so _very_ much."

"Your sarcasm is showing."

"Yeah, it happens."

~*T*~


	23. Taylor 12

~*T*~

Amy went to Gryffindor, then Lisa followed, and finally it was Taylor's turn under the hat.

"As I told your wife," a strange, male, voice said, "The headmaster would be so pleased to learn that love really is the Power the Dark Lord Knows Not," Taylor could hear the capital letters, "But I can't tell him, and you should be careful how you do, because it would scare him badly."

"And he is, no, could be, a great threat."

"Yes. Now that you know that, you'd better join your wives in," the voice changed, and Taylor knew everyone could hear, "Gryffindor!"

Gryffindor table broke into cheers, and Taylor skipped over to sit between her wives.

~*i*~

The cat on the desk turned into Professor McGonagall, and Lisa's eyes got wide, "That is fucking awesome."

"Yeah. He never saw the point, unfortunately."

"Guess we have to learn it the hard way," Amy said.

Matchsticks to sewing needles went easily for all of them. Amy was working on a knitting needle, Lisa a copy of Cleopatra's Needle, and Taylor was trying to replicate the Space Needle from memory. She had a feeling it looked more like the CN Tower, but wasn't sure.

The Professor just watched them, pleased to see such enthusiasm for her subject.

"Thirty points to Gryffindor" she said, then turned back to the students who needed help.

~*i*~

Taylor sat in the windowsill, a thick book in her lap, and glared at the pages.

Lisa leaned on her shoulder, and glared, "What the frilly heck," she complained, "This is worse than our history book."

"I'd think it was in code, but I think it's just that dry," Taylor sighed, "I read it once, and decided it was too much work."

"There's got to be a better way, then," Lisa said, "Budge over, let me read it with you."

Taylor braced one foot against the windowframe, and dangled the other out the window. Lisa dragged a chair over, plomped down next to Taylor, and put one foot on the chair and the other over Taylor's leg.

"The wall's two feet thick," Lisa complained, "We should both be able to sit here without feeling like we're gonna fall."

Taylor just wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

~*i*~

Taylor turned to Amy as Professor Quirrell turned back to the blackboard, his stupid purple turban wafting a scent of garlic.

Amy nodded.

Lisa looked between them, then at Quirrell, "Yuck. He's too old, and too big."

"We'd have to get him out of the professor, of course."

"Maybe. Pet rock?"

"We should be able to convince him, we know his passwords, after all."

~*i*~

Amy stared at their history teacher, unmoving, even as the class slowly woke up and filtered out.

Taylor and Lisa waited until the room was empty, then Lisa leaned in and gave Amy a kiss.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Lisa said, when Amy pulled back with a smile.

Amy grinned at her, grabbed Taylor by the collar, and kissed her too. She took a deep breath, slapped her hands on the table, then growled, "This man has been murdering history for three fucking hundred years. It stops. Now."

"I tried," Taylor said, "I admit, I only had a few minutes, but he's protected against the normal exorcisms."

"We'll have to try the abnormal ones, then."

~*i*~

Taylor and Luna crawled into Hermione's bed, since it was closest to the door, and Potions had been very draining. Three pairs of shoes hit the floor in an untidy pile, kicked off one at a time.

Lavender looked at Parvati, and shook her head.

Parvati just gave her a hug, then dug in her trunk for her nightclothes.

~*i*~

"Well," Professor Snape started the meeting, "Potter is not what I expected."

"Oh?"

"He says he's a girl, to start."

"What?" Headmaster Dumbledore asked, "Isn't he in the Gryffindor boy's dorm?"

"I don't know," Professor McGonagall said, "None of the Prefects have mentioned anything."

"None of the Gryffindor girls, or boys, seemed surprised by the statement," Snape added. He shrugged, "Not my problem. He's, She's, Potter's, extremely competent at potions. Not much flair, but quick and accurate. Lovegood has a little more flair, but is a little less precise. Granger needed to check the board more often, but made an adequate boil-removing potion. The rest of them were, as expected, a bunch of dunder-heads."

"P-p-Potter wa-was," Professor Quirrell paused, took a deep breath, and let it out, "Ahead of his p-peers, as wa-wa-," another deep breath, "were Granger and Lovegood."

"They had made sewing needles within the first three minutes of class, while I was still handing out matchsticks, and moved on to different needles."

"They performed the assigned charm as easily as I could, and started to help their classmates. Potter was better at that than the other two, Lovegood got frustrated easily and Granger was stymied by the students who didn't understand her explanations, but she got better as the class progressed."

Talk shifted to the less-exceptional students, and the plight of those who'd lost parents over the summer.

~*i*~

Minerva padded on tabby-feet into her first year girl's dorm, and noticed the pile of shoes by the first bed. She hopped up onto it, smiling at the sight of the three little heads sharing a pillow, cuddled close, fully dressed, not even having shed their robes after dinner.

She stands back up, and notices that a pair of bright green eyes are watching her warily.

"Meah," she said, walking up the bed. The ball of orange fur on the other pillow unrolled, brown eyes blinked at her lazily, then he curled back up again, wrapped his tail over his nose.

Harry reached out, scratched her gently at the point of her jaw, "Good evening, Professor."

"Myah," she said, and hopped down.

~*T*~


	24. Harry 12

~*T*~

"Around this next corner," Harry said.

Luna drifted, slid the van sideways, rounding the corner and straightening out before she slammed on the brakes.

Harry held onto the panic handle with one hand, and grabbed the giant woman's nose hairs in a summoning spell, pulling forward and down.

She crashed into the ground, face first. She squirmed, pushing ineffectually at the ground.

Hermione walked the last five steps and put her hand on her neck.

"Which one is this?" she asked.

"Fenja," Luna answered.

Hermione nodded, already dialing.

~*i*~

The aerokinetic slashed through the clouds of flying bugs, his movements more urgent as he began to panic.

Harry forced more anger into the swarm, and the bees responded, their sound, already unnerving, became positively frightening.

Swirling winds cleared a hole in the swarm, and Harry dropped a stunning spell through it.

The winds died.

"Yeah, Amy again," Hermione nodded, "Yeah, Stormtiger."

~*i*~

Hermione parked her 1986 Toyota Corolla coupe at the curb, pushed out on the parking brake's flanged button while she pulled the lever up, and left the car in neutral. She turned off the key, got out, and locked the door, the turbo timer still counting down.

She patted the little car's hood as she walked past, headed for the sidewalk-less front yard. The grass was patchy, the trees and bushes looked freshly trimmed, and a tall middle-aged man with a very short black afro was on a ladder, cleaning out the roof gutters.

"How's it going?" she asked him.

"Less hungry than usual, but very defined cravings," he said, "Liver, oxtail, pig feet, hamhock and bean soup," he started down the ladder, "I'm back up to two hundred pounds, my joints don't hurt, my back's straightened out a lot," he held out a hand, "My fingers didn't look this good at thirty," he ran that hand over his hair, "And the pattern baldness is gone, too."

"Myrtle?"

"She said yes. Come in, let's get you some tea, or coffee?"

~*i*~

"They're trying an ambush. Crusader's going to go pick a fight with the Merchants, and Victor's going to snipe us."

"Hmm," Hermione said, "Get me some wasps."

"What are you going to do?"

"Ketamine autoinjectors."

Luna grabbed her into a hug, "You are the most amazing girlfriend ever," and snogged her until Harry had quite filled her hair with a variety of wasps.

~*i*~

"Fifty slightly high E88 members, not capes, just neo-nazi asses, ready for pickup," Hermione was telling the dispatcher.

A figure dressed all in black and dark grey, a crossbow at her back, drifted way too slowly down to land near them.

"You," she said, rounding on Harry, then Luna, "You're the team taking down the Nazis?"

"Yes?"

"Fucking awesome! Can I join?"

Harry looked at Luna.

Luna asked, "Don't you belong to the Wards?"

"Eh, it was join or jail, so I don't have much loyalty to them."

"So-" Harry cut himself off.

She pulled her mask up anyway, met his eyes, nodded, then pulled it back down.

"Why were you going to jail?"

"Shot some asshole in the leg, hit the artery, got a tourniquet on, called 911 for him, and scarpered."

"Yeah," Hermione said, "My mom always stressed remaining at the scene unless pursuing another perp."

"That's what my PD told me, too. They should put shit up like that on PHO, a FAQ for new heroes, you know?"

Luna nodded, "That sounds like a really good idea."

"So, can I join your team? I wanna beat up Nazis!"

~*i*~

Hermione sat down, accepted the cup of chicory coffee, and smiled at the fiftyish woman across from her, "You two weren't from around here, were you?"

"No, Ah wasn't," she sighed, "You know they desegregated the services in 1948, right?" Her vowels are a little long, and she almost said "yah" for "you."

"It was a big stink, as I recall."

"That's a way to put it. Laurence and I met in Korea, in 1950. Big fucking scandal, Ah was an officer, and he topped out at staff sergeant, he was black, Ah was white. We got married, an' that satisfied the Army, but a couple weeks on leave, back in Naw'leans?" she shook her head, thin grey hair over thicker brown roots, "We traveled, after we got out, and Brockton Bay was a real nice place, then. Korean grocery down the street, kimbap for a dime, some people cared he was black and Ah wasn't, but no one cared enough to push it."

She sipped her coffee, "The kids were grown by the time the Nazi's started back up, and we were too old for them to care. I like my house, I like my neighbors, I hope I don't have to leave."

"I think it'll be OK."

~*i*~

Shadow Stalker went intangible as Menja stabbed at her. Menja growled, hacking and slashing at Shadow Stalker, who put her thumbs to her cowl by her ears, and wiggled her fingers.

Menja howled her rage, and took a step forward. Tried to take a step forward. Discovered her legs had been tied together with steel cable, and fell on her face.

"Stupid Nazi," Shadow Stalker laughed. She crossed her arms, tilted her head, reached up to rub the chin of her mask, then darted forward, pulled her mask up, and kissed Menja on the cheek.

Menja left off trying to free her legs, and swiped at Shadow Stalker, who went intangible. She left her mask up just enough for Menja to see her skin color, stepped back a bit more, then pulled her mask back into place.

"You're so sweet, Menja, you're gonna make some big black mama really happy in the pen."

Menja got to her hands and knees and crawled awkwardly after her.

"Give up, Nazi, or I shall taunt you again!"

~*T*~


	25. Taylor 13

~*T*~

"There's a ghost-protecting ward," Lisa sighed, while the spell continued to fizzle out.

"Well, fuck," Taylor scuffed out the circle on the floor of Binn's office, "That's lovely."

Amy crossed her arms, pouted, and scowled at the floor, "He's immobile, insensate, and useless. He hasn't remembered a student since 1776, and hasn't graded a paper since 1854. I'm not sitting through another seven years of his crap."

"Bind him, remove him, then exorcise him?" Taylor proposed.

"Bind him, remove him, tie him to the Minister of Magic's desk?" Lisa offered.

"The statue of Magical Brethren. We need to get rid of that eyesore, anyway," Amy sighed, "Salt, virgin's blood, a good rock?"

~*i*~

"We should bump them to second year, maybe third," Snape said. "They're utterly bored."

"Have you been reading the students again, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

"I can smell it, it wafts off them in waves. There is no challenge to their schoolwork for them."

"I must agree," Quirrell said, "Wa-wa-wafts. They are reading the seventh year defense book in class, wa-wa-without being so distracted they can't answer any question I p-p-put to the class."

"They spent both class periods this week turning matches into needles, then into hedgehogs and porcupines. Potter had a lovely Crested Porcupine last class, and Lovegood's hedgehog was adorable."

"They are working on Summoning and Banishing in my class," Flitwick agreed, "I fear disruptive behavior if we cannot present them with a challenge."

Dumbledore stroked his beard, "Let's give them another week, and make a decision next Friday."

He gets nods from around the table.

~*i*~

Second Saturday of the school year.

Flying lesson for the first years.

Lisa stood, staring at he broom she lined up next to. She chewed her lip, brought one leg up, stroked her chin, brought her other leg up, put her elbow on her knee, and her chin on her hand. She tucked her feet up on top of her knees, and sighed, leaning on both hands, sitting on the air.

Amy poked her, "Showoff," she whispered.

A flurry of noise rose.

Lisa smiled, untucked her feet, and stood up, "Thank you, thank you," she said, bowing left and right.

A smattering of applause sounded.

~*i*~

Lisa, Amy, and Taylor had gotten into a game of tag, and Amy was it.

Lisa went up, Taylor went right, and Amy angled to intercept Taylor.

Taylor pulled hard to the left, there was a crack, and she tucked and rolled off the broom. She fell four meters, rolled to bleed off the impact, and sat up.

The broom stabbed into the ground, caught fire, then exploded.

"Cool," Taylor said as flaming splinters landed all around.

~*i*~

The girls swam in the cold Hebridean water, vast shallow pans full of seawater set up above the high-tide line of the tiny deserted island they chose. The pans are heated, sunlight during the day, and biologically at night, so the salt should be ready to harvest in a week.

Taylor cupped Lisa's foot in her hands, and threw her into the air, driving herself under the water, nictitating membranes closing automatically. Lisa laughed, tucked into a spin, and crashed back into the water with a huge splash.

Amy pinged them from the bottom, and they watched as she fish-kicked to the surface, breached, and jerked her flippered feet out of the water even as she tumbled backwards back in.

"All out!" she bragged, shoved her hair back out of her face, tread water easily.

"Awesome!" Lisa congratulated, swimming over slowly.

Taylor tried, again, to porpoise. She breached, a sliver of clear air under her tummy, then back into the water. She surfaced next to the other two, "Technique? Strength? Or hydrodynamics?" she asked.

"All three?" Amy asked, "We can work on that next week, when we come back for the salt?"

"Sounds good," Taylor nodded, a smile crossed her face, and she reached out, tagged Lisa, "You're it."

~*i*~

"Happy Birthday Hermione!" rang out as the girls came through the portrait hole Thursday after class.

Taylor put her wand away, calmed the swarm, tucked the cowbells and fireflies back into the cracks in the stonework. Lisa stepped back over, wand down, but still out. Amy patted the paranoid as it climbed out of its bones, cuddled back around her neck.

The twin Weasleys break the ice, "I guess we shouldn't startle you in a dark alley."

Lisa laughed, "No, you shouldn't."

~*i*~

There is still a little cake left when Lisa pulls the guitar out of her pocket.

Amy clutched Taylor, and Crookshanks darted into his human's lap, put his paws over his ears.

Lisa laughed at them, continued checking the tune of the guitar.

~*i*~

"Comin' in from London, from over the pole, flyin' in a big air liner," Lisa sang, badly, and played the guitar, much better, "Chicken flying everywhere all over the plane,"

Amy and Taylor endured, and the rest of the victims in the common room clapped.

Lisa changed the tune, played the intro, "They were farm kids, way down in Dixie, met in high school, in the sixties," Lisa's ability to maul songs didn't show as much in this song.

"The whole town said that the boy shoulda used red, but it looked good to Charleene in John Deere Green," Amy and Taylor joined in for the chorus.

~*i*~

Lisa scraped up the last of the salt, bagged it, and added it to the pile. The last drying pan turned into crabs and scuttled away, leaving the small island empty, the grass a little pale from a week without sun, but otherwise undamaged. The moon was high, and the sun setting, casting orange light over the beach.

"Let's swim?" Lisa asked, even as she pulled her robes over her head.

"Yes," Amy said, stripped, and ran for the water.

~*T*~

Note: Lisa's mauling Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles" and Joe Diffie's "John Deere Green"

Looked up 19 Sept 1991, and it's a Thursday. The full Moon was 23 Sept 1991. This required some re-arranging.


	26. Harry 13

~*T*~

"Give up, Nazi, or I shall taunt you again!" Harry quoted, then laughed. He managed to quiet, then broke out giggling again.

"Eh, that is kinda funny," Hermione said, "But I don't understand why you keep laughing about it."

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

Luna and Hermione blinked.

"It's a movie?" Hermione asked.

"Which we haven't seen," Luna agreed.

"Oh, then we should fix that."

~*i*~

Luna was in the passenger seat of Hermione's little Toyota, and the abandoned parking lot was empty, other than the concrete bases that formerly supported light poles and the orange cones they had used to lay out the course. Hermione sighed, pouted, and rolled her neck, loosened her fingers on the steering wheel.

"I cheat," Luna said, "And I was only ten seconds faster than you."

"How?"

Luna pondered, "A second of it was starting with the turbo spooled up, a second each for braking deeper into corner two and six, and I drifted the last corner until I was on line for the exit. The other five seconds?" she shrugged, "Practice. Smoother driving."

"Once more, then," Hermione put the clutch pedal down, shifted into first, and watched the tach as she added gas.

"Five," Luna counted, stopwatch in hand, "Four, three, two, one, go," she clicked the watch as she finished the word go and Hermione romped the gas, let out the clutch, and chirped the tires once as the live axle bucked against the suspension links. Luna stayed quiet, pulled against her seatbelt by Hermione's rough driving.

"Forty-seven point two three seconds," Luna reads, even as Hermione brakes, downshifting, engine braking, "Almost six seconds better."

"That's enough for today," Hermione says, pulling back to the beginning of the course, "Let's pick up the cones."

~*i*~

Kaiser is on one side of the vacant lot, with Othala and a crowd of unpowered Nazis.

Harry Apparated in with his girls and Shadow Stalker. They let go of Shadow Stalker, and Luna patted her shoulder, "Thank you."

"No problem," Shadow Stalker answered.

Hermione stepped forward, grinning, "Surrender, miscreants, or face The Beast Of Caerbannog!"

Shadow Stalker, as seemed to be her wont, staggered in place, laughing.

Kaiser was not amused. He, unfortunately for him, was also not scared.

"It is just a fluffy bunny! Stand your ground, men!"

Shadow Stalker fell down, and Luna leaned on Harry, lips twitching.

"When you realize the horror that is the Beast, fall on your faces and play dead!" Hermione yelled, "We tried to teach it to recognize surrender, but I make no Promises!"

"Are you going to fight, or are you going to talk?"

"Death awaits you all, with nasty, big, pointy teeth. Surrender, or face your Doom!" Shadow Stalker's threat would have worked much better if she'd stopped laughing first.

One of the unpowered fired a handgun at them.

"Sic 'em, Fluffy," Hermione told the white rabbit in her arms.

It lept down, and the carnage began.

~*i*~

"We told them we had the Beast of Caerbannog, but they just laughed." Hermione said, gestured with her left hand, which held the Beast's leash.

The Beast, in a harness, with the leash attached between its shoulders, twitched its still-bloody nose.

"I probably should have made myself scarce after we teleported in," Shadow Stalker said, "I couldn't stop laughing at the thought of the fight between the Beast and the Nazis, so they may not have taken our warnings seriously."

"Oh?"

"I told them to surrender, first thing," Hermione said.

"Then," Shadow Stalker giggled, "Kaiser was all "It's just a bunny!""

"Oh?" Director Piggot of the PRT asked, looking around the bloody field.

"And we told them to lay down and play dead once they realized they wanted to live," Luna said.

"And I told them that death awaited them all on nasty, big, pointy teeth," Shadow Stalker said, "I probably should have stopped rolling around laughing first."

"Probably," Piggot said.

"It was just so funny," she sighed, "Until it was all blood and death and screaming."

Piggot nodded her understanding.

"They shot at us, I sic'd Fluffy on them, about half of them lost their heads and the other half fell on their faces and played dead until we could get Fluffy back on leash."

"Othala lived and Kaiser died?"

"Yeah, Othala dropped on her face as soon as the blood started flying. Kaiser stayed up, I guess trusting in his armor and temporary invulnerability. His aim was pitiful, but he went down trying to fight."

~*i*~

"Myrtle gave me your number," the old woman says, her accent distinct, but somehow faded, "Eun-hye's been fading, her short term memory was never great, but it's getting awful. It's making her so upset," she takes a deep breath, half a sob, "Could you?"

"I can try. I won't promise anything, but probably," Hermione said, "What's your address?"

~*i*~

A chunk of concrete hovered down the road, and came to a stop in front of Shadow Stalker.

"Your team is hard to find," the younger blonde, wearing jeans, t-shirt, and a black Zorro mask that looked like it had been a t-shirt recently, said.

The older blonde nodded.

"Since the choices seem to be give up being a Nazi or die, and we kinda like living, and I don't wanna go back to jail," the girl shudders, "Or have to put up with being in the wards, and Cricket's too old, anyway," she smiles, clasping her hands under her chin, "Can we join your team?"

"Um?" Shadow Stalker pulled out a phone, "I can ask."

"Thank you!" Rune bounced a bit in place.

Shadow Stalker's mask tilted up and down in time with the bouncing a moment, then she shook her head and dialed.

~*T*~


	27. Taylor 14

~*T*~

Taylor dropped the smooth ocean rock on Binns' desk, and started chanting.

Lisa sprinkled salt, gathered under the full moon, first in a circle around the stone, then to form runes around it.

Amy reached into the circle, finger-painting more runes, onto the rock and onto Binns' desktop, in fresh-gathered virgin's blood.

Binns, wailing, clawing at the floor, is dragged, feet first, into the classroom. He grabbed the doorframe, holding there for a moment.

Taylor continued to chant, Lisa joining in. Amy sprinkled salt on Binns' fingers, and he was pulled into the room, his feet vanishing into the smooth, dark stone, his fingers clutched over the edge of the desk. Amy sprinkled more salt on his fingers, and he vanished into the rock.

~*i*~

"Tom," Taylor greeted, catching Quirrell's attention.

"What did you say?"

"Marvolo," Amy said, from behind and to Quirrell's left.

"Riddle," Lisa finished, behind and to his left.

Quirrell's gaze darted about his classroom, everyone else had gone minutes ago, the door was shut.

"How do you know that name, Potter?" he asked.

Taylor held out her wand by the tip, handle upward, about shoulder height, and dropped it.

It got nearly to the floor before leaping back into her hand, the handle slapping gently to her palm.

"The question, Tom, is which god went to the moon, but did not land?"

Quirrell stilled, put his hands flat on the table, "and what is the answer?"

"Apollo 13, of course."

"What did they not say?" Quirrell prompted.

"Houston, we have a problem."

"The next question," Amy said, "is what did the king of beasts say to the mouse?"

"Really?" Quirrell asked, "He was that careless?"

"He totally was. They were all a waste of time, so we got rid of them."

"What did the mouse say to the king of beasts?"

"Nothing, he just let out a little wine."

"What do you have planned for me?"

"We transfer you to this nice pet rock, and Luna can carry you around."

"How is that better than Quirrell?"

"The rock won't degrade, and Quirrell may be useful in the future. If things go as we expect, you will merge with Luna, before too long, and no one will be able to find you. You, like us, will be safe."

"What of conquering Britain?"

"It can wait. A little patience, a little more planning, choosing a less dangerous, more subtle path to power, and we can rule the entire world, not just this little backwater," Lisa said.

"If we are patient and careful, we can rule not only the world, but travel to the stars."

"Let me see this rock."

Lisa pulled the fist-sized dark green nephrite from her pocket, "We owl-ordered this when we realized," she said, and put it on the table in front of him.

Amy put down a vial, "The blood of seven virgins," she said, "All Gryffindors. We thought you'd be appreciative."

"And sea salt, harvested under a full moon," Taylor set down another vial.

"You have what we need," Quirrell took a deep breath, "Let us begin."

~*i*~

Quirrell was amazed to still be alive.

Lisa was cuddling Tom-the-Jade, enjoying his confused, panicked, dawning understanding, "Resistance is futile," she whispered to him lovingly, "You are mine."

Amy and Taylor each had an arm about Lisa, and waved to Quirrell, "We'll see you next class."

"Next class," Quirrell agreed, once more stroking the short hair growing on his head.

~*i*~

Taylor held Binns' rock while Amy painted the runes onto the statue of Magical Brethren. Lisa hung the banner.

The runes painted, but still wet, Taylor touched the rock to them, and began to chant. She pulled the rock away, and Binns was dragged out of it, flailing, distraught. Taylor Vanished the blood.

The girls teleported out while Binns floated in circles, unable to escape his tie to the statue.

~*i*~

"Thus are the enemies of Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, punished."

The banner, and Binns' distraught ghostly form, greeted the morning shift.

~*i*~

"Whatever was done to him? I can't free him from the statue. The Unspeakables said that they should be able to get him free, in a few decades," Dumbledore continued, "Bathilda," he noted confused looks from a couple places around the staff table, "Bathilda Bagshot, has agreed to teach the rest of this term, but we will need a new history teacher for next year."

"Beyond that," Snape said, worry in his voice, "The Dark Lord was inside Hogwarts, abducted a professor, and used his real name to claim responsibility. This is unprecedented."

"Tom Riddle applied for the position of Dark Arts professor, back in the day, so I wonder if he's intending to change his tactics? Killing his way to power did not work out well for him, so he may have decided on a new course of action."

"But what?" Dumbledore asked softly.

McGonnagal glanced around the table, "Anything else for this week?"

A few "No"s and several shaken heads answer.

"Then I'll see you all next Friday."

~*i*~

"Miss Lovegood, could you stay back?" Professor McGonagall asked.

Lisa stopped, looked at her, then waved Taylor and Amy on.

"We'll wait outside," Taylor said.

"Thank you."

Once the door was closed, "Yes?"

"I've noticed you talking to your rock a lot."

Lisa nodded, "Yes, he's a new pet, so he hasn't tamed down much yet."

"Oh?"

"Yes, he's a very angry rock, and a bit ashamed, and scared. So I need to love him and squeeze him and call him Tom."

"Oh."

"He had a bit of a crush on you, when he was a student," Lisa tells her, "But he doesn't understand feelings very well now, and it was even worse then. Could you give him a kiss, please?"

McGonagall smiled, "If you'd like."

"Thank you, he'd appreciate it, even though it'll scare him," Lisa held out Tom-the-Jade.

McGonagall cupped her hands around Lisa's, and bent down. She planted a quick kiss on the rock, and shivered, tears glimmering in her eyes.

"He is really angry."

"He didn't get enough love as a child. He thinks he didn't get any, but certainly not enough."

"No, I don't think he did."

~*T*~


	28. Harry 14

~*T*~

"Really," Rune whined.

Harry just looked at her.

"Woodland BDUs and Zorro masks," she shook her head, "What kind of team wears such dumb costumes?"

"The world's biggest, meanest, best-funded gang?" Luna asked.

"Eh," Rune made a wishy-washy motion with her hand, "Without the Zorro masks. And they've gone to shoot-me blue."

"See, perfectly fine costume," Hermione said. Unlike the rest of them, her uniform had a name tape, which said "Dallon."

"How can you show off what your powers are?"

"By doing things?"

"And you don't want to stand out from the crowd, really. Being a big, obvious target is asking for a sniper," Luna said.

"Eh," Rune sighed, "I don't like it, but if it's the team uniform, I'll wear it."

"Why do I need to be healed?" Cricket asked, her voice buzzy from the electrolarynx.

"Because you're too recognizable. One impossible-to-disguise former Nazi we can maybe get away with, two is pushing it. Unless you're willing to be black, or boys, you're gonna have to lose the scars."

"Japanese?" Cricket asked, touched one of her kama.

"Maybe Chinese, with a pair of butterfly swords?" Luna asked, "No, they're used almost entirely differently. Hmm."

~*i*~

"Eun-hye," Hermione greeted the younger of the two, "Min," then the older.

"Hermione," Min said, "Could I get you some tea?"

Hermione nodded, "Things are going well for you?"

Eun-hye nodded, "I look like myself in the mirror, my short term memory is better, and I haven't set my keys down somewhere I can't find them for days," she smiled up at Min, who had the teapot, and waited for it to be set down, "And Min's been getting prettier every day."

Min blushed, looked down, picked up her teacup to hide behind.

Eun-hye laughed, played with the long white ends of her hair, her roots think, black, and short, "Will the white fall out? Or hang onto the ends as they grow?"

"So far some of the white falls out, and a little bit of it stays, the hair changing color as it grows out."

"So if I braid it I'll end up with a little tuft of white at the tip?"

"For a while, anyway."

~*i*~

"Redhead, with freckles, and green eyes," Rune said. She leaned back against the van, which now sported a taxi medallion, and a phone number: 1(101)328-7448.

"What shade?" Luna asked. She was also leaned back against the van, where she waited for Taylor to get out of class.

"Anne-with-an-E orange. And gobs of freckles."

"I'm pretty sure that could be accommodated."

"Oh, good. I was thinking that if I pretended that I was a tinker instead of a shaker, that'd help."

"Hmm," Luna nodded, "That might, indeed. Strap things with blinky devices before lifting them?"

"Yeah, and limit myself to a single vehicle."

"The Great and Powerful Turtle," Luna nodded.

"What?"

"You wouldn't have read those stories, but the frame is an alien virus was released over New York in 1946. Most people who catch it "draw the black queen," and die. Some are mutated, but gain no useful powers, jokers, and some pull an ace, developing a strong, useful power without too much mutation. Most of the stories were written, and set, in the 1980s. One of the aces was the Great and Powerful Turtle, who was a really strong telekinetic, so long as he was in his shell."

"Oh?" Rune asked, a little confused.

"His first shell was made out of a VW Beetle, but his later shells were more turtle-shaped, and armor plated."

"Interesting," Rune smiled widely.

"Can you hydroform with your powers?"

"What's that?"

"Reshape metal by pressing it, either into a form or out from flat, with water or other fluid. There's youtube videos."

"I don't know."

"If you can bend and form thick steel, I know where you can find a lot that no one will complain about," Luna looked to the north east.

Rune followed her gaze, thought a moment, then nodded, "I think you're right," she was silent a moment, "Call me Anne, it'll go with the hair."

~*i*~

Harry walked out, finally. Sophia was walking close to him. Emma was walking even closer to Madison.

"Lord's Street Market at 1530, we'll be chasing unpowered and Merchants,"Luna said.

Rune, Anne, nodded, and walked off.

Luna skipped over and pulled Harry into a kiss.

~*i*~

"We," Hermione complained, "Have been spending entirely too much time on things that aren't sex."

"Isn't the boy supposed to complain about lack of sex?" Harry asked. He leaned over to rub his shoulder against hers.

She smiled, "You don't complain. You made polite enquiries when we were working on our NEWTs and hadn't had sex in two and a half weeks, but you never complained."

"Well, to be fair, he got through, ""Could we have," and might have started an s sound when books were falling and clothes were flying," Luna said.

"We've never gone more than a week without before or since, but I much prefer at least twice a week."

"Fucking Nazis." Harry agreed.

"No," Luna said, "No fucking Nazis. At all. We haven't had the discussion about fucking teammates, though."

"Not interested," Harry said.

"Sophia's interested."

"Eh, she's pretty. Too much work: if they're not interested, you've got to convince them, if they are interested, they're probably gonna become crazy stalkers."

"Most people are pretty sane, and perfectly able to have sex with someone without going nuts," Hermione said.

"If you want to, go for it, just make sure I know so I can help clean up or move bodies if needed."

"I'm not going to have sex with anyone without both of you helping!" Hermione said firmly.

"I guess I'm willing, if you want," Harry said eventually.

"What he said," Luna glanced at the dash, then turned the van off, and they climbed out.

~*T*~


	29. Taylor 15

~*T*~

"Let's go see Myrtle," Amy said, holding Tom-the-Jade, "I'm sure she could use some love, too."

Lisa nodded from her place in Taylor's lap, "What are ghost-kisses like?"

"Let's go find out!"

~*i*~

"Well," Professor Sprout said, "They know the theory, all of them, and Potter's very good at the practical. I think they'd do just fine in Second or Third year."

"Have you met Miss Lovegood's pet rock, Tom?"

"Yes, I have," Quirrell said, "I'd never met an angry rock before."

"Is he a danger?"

"No, he leaks emotion everywhere when he's not being held, but even in the week since I first saw Luna's pet rock he's tamed down a lot. I really think he just needs to be loved."

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore asked, kindly.

"I mean, have you ever caught a snake for a pet?"

Dumbledore nodded, as did McGonagall. Everyone else shook their heads.

"When you catch them they are fiesty, they hiss and they bite and they try to escape all the time. As you hold them and feed them, they become docile, even a little affectionate. They learn their new routines, and adapt to them.

"Luna's angry rock is like that, he wants to bite and scratch and fight, but he also wants to be held, hugged and loved. He in no way understands how to accept that, much less admit it, so it is good that he's a rock. As a rock his ability to hurt is limited."

"He hurts a lot," McGonagall said, "Luna asked me to give him a kiss. He is so angry, but so ashamed, so scared, as well."

"Her rock is the third they've encountered, and the other two were laid to rest," Quirrell said, "Exposed to the love between those girls, and loved for what they were, without romanticizing or excuses."

"What do you mean?"

"You love a doll because it is a doll, or a pet scorpion because it is a scorpion. You don't love your doll, but want it to be a man, or your scorpion a puppy. An angry rock is a very difficult pet, but that is why you love it, because it needs love so badly."

"Laid to rest?"

"Loved until its pain no longer bound it, until it could forgive."

Dumbledore stroked his beard, "Very interesting, but we have drifted from our topic, do we want to bump these three to a different year?"

~*i*~

"Myrtle?" Taylor said, "Are you here?"

"What? More ickle firsties here to pick on spotty, creepy, cry-y Moaning Myrtle?"

"No," Lisa said, "We are not going to pick on you."

"You really are just adorable," Amy said, and walked forward slowly, one hand outstretched.

"I am not!" Myrtle said firmly, backing away.

"You are," Taylor said, "That's a big part of why Olive picked on you, did you know?"

"What? That's not true."

"Tom interrogated her after, about why you were in the bathroom at all," Taylor sighed, "She thought you were the cutest, and thought the boys paid more attention to you than to her, and that you were paying more attention to them than her."

"The boys were such a bother, that's why they needed so much attention. She should remember that I didn't haunt any of them!"

"I think you were being pretty mean when you were haunting Olive."

"I was very upset! Of course I was a little mean, I'da gotten over it in a few months."

"A few months with a mean ghost is too many for most people. Maybe if you'd kissed her before you died she'd have been been willing to put up with you being upset for longer."

"Maybe. Or she'da been even meaner while I was alive."

"She said she should have kissed you."

"Piss in a bottle!"

"Yeah. Tom was sorry you saw the Basilisk, but didn't have any way to fix that. He also thought you were cute."

"Tom? Prefect Tom? Thought plain little Myrtle was cute?"

"Yup."

"How do you know? You're just teasing me, aren't you."

"He left a bit of his soul in my scar, when he tried to kill me," Taylor said, touching the scar, "And until we convinced him he was loved, he radiated his anger and pain to everyone around me. When he gave up fighting everything, he properly became a part of me."

"Oh? Can you prove that?"

"Amy had a piece of him, too, the piece that broke off when you died," Lisa said, "And this piece was in Professor Quirrell, before we convinced it to be a rock," she held out Tom-the-Jade.

"He is really angry," Myrtle said, looking at the rock closely, "Would a kiss help him be happier?"

"I don't know, but I doubt it would hurt."

Myrtle leaned forward, and planted a quick peck on the rock, "I forgive you. You didn't know I was here. You could have been more careful, but you did not kill me because you were bad. You are not bad, even if you did bad things."

Suddenly Myrtle burst into sobs, and dove into one of the toilets with a splash.

"He escaped!" Lisa cried, "My pet Dark Lord escaped!"

"What?"

"He totally surrendered to Myrtle!"

"Huh," Amy said, "Is he going to be a danger?"

"No, but I want another pet," Lisa pouted.

"Maybe if you hadn't teased him so much he would have surrendered to you instead."

"I had no idea he was so close to giving up," Lisa sighed, "But Myrtle will keep him out of trouble."

"Shall we go to the room of lost things, then?" Amy held out an arm.

"Let's," Taylor agreed, taking her arm.

Lisa latched onto Taylor's other arm, "Lead on."

~*T*~


	30. Harry 15

~*T*~

E88 members dropped throughout the open-air market, and Anne gathered them up. She picked them up with a great metal claw that may have been some sort of logging equipment. The claw was attached with a chain to what obviously had been a VW Beetle before someone covered the windows and removed the wheels.

Lisa smiled at the sight.

The Nazis were piled like cord wood, then Harry turned to the Merchants. They dropped, and were collected, in a similar manner.

Once the market was free of gangs, Hermione called to get them picked up, "Yes, I have a pile of E88 thugs and a pile of Merchants, could you come pick them up, please? I'm sure most of them have concealed handguns, or knives over 4 inches. The merchants mostly have illicit drugs on them. If they don't have anything, you can keep them for three days, and they'll probably incriminate themselves in that time."

~*i*~

"Who's your new team member?" Director Piggot, who'd come out with the troops again, asked.

"I am The Great and Powerful Turtle," she waved her claw.

"It is nice to meet you, Turtle."

She shook her shell back and forth, "People won't understand where I got the name if you don't use it all."

"All?"

"The Great and Powerful Turtle," Anne said, "Five words, one name."

"Oh," Piggot visibly stopped herself from shaking her head, "It is nice to meet you, The Great and Powerful Turtle."

"Thank you, Director."

"Director?" Hermione held out her hand.

"Yes?"

"You need to eat less sugar. I want to fix your kidney damage. May I?"

Piggot crossed her arms over her chest, the fingers of one hand twitching, then finally nodded. She reached out and took Hermione's hand.

"Kidneys, sugar damage, more sugar damage, may I turn some of this fat into muscle? It'll make the insulin resistance easier to fix."

"If you want."

"Thank you," Hermione let go of Piggot's hand, "Stay off the sugar, eat veggies, meat, and animal fats as much as you want."

"I'll do my best."

"I mean it. Get them to remove the flavored sugar water from the vending machines, cut back on the candies available, crisps. I don't know if they have vending-machine sized jerky available, but nuts are better than candy."

"And you know this because?"

Hermione held up a hand, "I heal people. A lot."

~*i*~

"What's this?" Harry asked. _This_ was a dark metallic blue-green, much more blue than green, so not, Harry noted to himself, teal, small for a car, rounded like a well-used bar of soap. The engine is running quietly, and the tan vinyl top is up in the mid-March drizzle.

"You'll be 16 in a few months," Luna said, "So I got you something."

"It's a car," Harry turned to Luna, cocking his head to the side, "Does it drink lots of premium?"

"Perfectly happy on regular, should drink about three gallons per hundred miles, lighter than Hermione's 86, less power, but you don't want to fiddle with a turbo, and a supercharger would still drop your milage a bit," Luna answered.

"So you're going to teach me?"

"If you'd like," Luna turned her head a bit, looking away.

"Please."

Luna opened the driver's door for Harry. Harry admired the door handles. The interior is tan as well, with a wooden shift knob and handle on the parking brake. Luna climbed it the passenger side, and talked him through adjusting the seat.

"OK, left foot off the dead pedal, and put in the clutch," Luna said, "Now shift it into first, and just slowly back out the clutch until you feel it begin to engage."

The tach dropped precipitously, and Harry jerked his foot the rest of the way off the clutch. The car jerked, and the engine died.

"When the RPMs drop like that, put the clutch back in. Start it up again."

~*i*~

"You can heal me," Cricket said in her buzzy voice, "Some conditions."

'Yes?" Hermione asked.

"Therapy. You find, you pay," she shook her head, "Fighting my problems away," she shrugged.

Luna nodded, "We can do that."

"Pretty Japanese girl, eyes your color."

Hermione nodded.

"Money."

"How's 60 thou to start?" Luna asked.

"Fine," she held out her hand.

Hermione reached out, and they shook.

Cricket's scars smoothed out, her hair darkened, her eyes shifted from blue to a pale amber brown, eyelids changing shape just a bit.

"We'll need a full-length mirror for pretty, OK?"

"That's," the word came out very odd, so she paused, worked her lips, tried again, "That's fine. When?" Her voice was still a bit garbled, but improved.

"This evening after my hospital shift work for you?, about 10?"

She nodded, "Where?"

"Diner at the corner of Bourbon and Desire?"

"I know it. Fine."

"I'll see you then," Hermione said.

"Thank you," Cricket sounded, and looked, awkward, like she had not thanked anyone for years.

~*i*~

"Yeah, so," Hermione said, "I'm really thinking I'll weaponize this," she indicated her patient with her chin, face hidden behind his chart.

Luna cocked her head, "Sugar aversion?"

"Yep, our appetites are great for wild humans, we can't get enough carbs to mess us up, but zoo humans?" Hermione sighed, "So I've adjusted the threshold at which carbs start tasting bad, and linked it to metabolic disruption and body fat. I need to try it on a few thousand people to check for problems."

"Mosquitos," Harry said.

"You are the best girlfriend ever," Hermione said, and wrapped him in a hug.

"Um, boy."

"Are you sure?"

"Maybe?"

~*i*~

Harry watched Hermione as she drove, brake, clutch, dab of gas, downshift, repeat, car in neutral, foot off the clutch, tiny bit of brake as they coasted up to the stoplight. It turned green before they got there, clutch in, second gear, clutch slowly out as she fed in gas, third before they've entered the crossing, fourth in the middle, 45 MPH. Hermione looked at her gages a moment, let off on the gas, almost coasting.

~*T*~


	31. Taylor 16

~*T*~

The room full of McGuffins was inspected, bits of abandoned clothing and jewelry were checked for curses, potions, or noxious spells, then modeled, and after a bit they found Ravenclaw's Diadem.

Even with Tom's knowledge, it took them until after dinner to remove all the curses and protections he put on it. They checked it one more time, then Lisa put it in her pocket. "I'm hungry."

"We be's having leftovers! Would you be liking some?" A Yoda-like person asked from near their knees.

"Yes, please," Lisa said, "What is your name?"

"Tyson." Amy and Taylor exchanged a glance.

"What is your quest?"

"To protect and look after the Students of Hogwarts."

"What is your favorite colour?"

"Purple."

"What do you have to feed us, Tyson?"

"All of your favorites, missy Lovegood, Treacle Tart, Roast Beast, Pudding, lots of vegitables dripping with butter."

"Yum. Could you bring us some, please?"

"Right away," he said, and one of the tables cleared off in a flurry of junk. Three chairs sort themselves out of the piles, and golden plates of food appear on the table.

"Why are you being so helpful?"

"We bes so happy! You's been removing all of the Dark Lord's curses from Hogwarts, and you's love drowns out the Dark Lord's anger and shame."

"Oh, that's good."

~*i*~

A quick laying of hands over breakfast the next morning gathered the blood of seven virgins, and they still hand plenty of moon-gathered sea salt, the only rare ingredients they needed.

After Herbology they cleared a spot in the room of lost things, then transferred Lisa's pet from the Diadem to the rock.

Lisa gave him some cuddles.

"Don't tease him so much this time," Amy said, "You were a little rough with your last pet."

"I know," Lisa said, "But he didn't entirely dislike it. I didn't think he'd run away to someone else."

"He did have a crush on her," Taylor said, "So be more gentle with this one, or he might run away to Professor McGonagall."

Lisa's lips twitched, "I'm pretty sure she's as lonely as you are," she told Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem, "I'll love you and squeeze you and call you Tom, but I won't spank you when you're bad, because you aren't bad, even though you have done a lot of bad things. When you feel it's safe, you will be assimilated, your magical and technological distinctiveness will be added to my own, Amy and Taylor will love us, and we'll be together forever."

She gave him a squeeze, "Shh, there's no need to be scared, shh."

Amy gave her a kiss, then Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem, "I love you."

Taylor did the same, then pulled all three of them into her arms, "We love you."

~*i*~

"Pettigrew," Myrtle demanded. He pretended to sleep. She poked Scabbers the rat with a finger, and he jumped.

The rat backed away from them on Ron Weasley's bed, back arched, fur raised, whiskers twitching.

"Turn back into a human. Now."

He shook his head, trembling.

Myrtle crossed her arms, and glared down at him over her glasses, "I let your parents, and your sister, live. Your sister is happily married, and you have two adorable little nieces," She smiled at him, "Turn back into a human."

He did, revealing a short, balding man who was missing a finger, "What do you want?" his voice quavered with fear, and trembled from lack of use.

"My other selves took care of my useless Death Eaters, so you are going to help me resurrect myself."

Peter blinked, "What?"

"Keep up, man, you're better than this," she sighed, "You didn't get killed with the other free Death Eaters, so you must be useful."

"Oh, OK," Peter nodded, "What do we need to do, boss?"

"First, we're gonna visit my parents, and collect some bones," she paused, "No, first we're gonna visit my other selves, and get you prettified."

"OK?" Peter looked confused.

"Can't have an ugly dead man for a servant," Myrtle shook her head, "Not when I can just as easily have a pretty girl."

Peter shook his head, "But I don't want to be a girl."

"How do you know? Have you ever been one?"

"No, but."

"No buts." Myrtle turned toward the door, "If you don't like it after six months we can turn you back."

"Oh," Peter thought a moment, "You can make me a pretty boy, right?"

"Later, maybe, if you want."

"That's OK, then," Peter turned back into a rat, jumped down from the bed, and walked to the door. He looked up at Myrtle. Myrtle looked down at him.

"This is going to be annoying, isn't it."

~*i*~

Myrtle left Peter curled up under one of the couches in the common room, and went in search of her other selves.

They were cuddled up together in the room of lost things, and looked up when she entered.

"Hello, Myrtle," the oldest of her said.

"Hello, Taylor," she kissed the boy on the lips. It was much more pleasant than she expected. "Amy," she kissed the brown-haired girl, "Lisa," the blonde, "Tom," Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem.

She got a couple more "Hello, Myrtles," from the girls.

"I'm hoping you'll help me a bit, Amy," she said, "Peter is very recognizable, when he's human, and can't open doors when he's a rat."

"Oh?"

"Could you make him into a pretty girl for me? And maybe into a pretty boy in about six months if he actually doesn't like being a pretty girl?"

"I can do that," Amy said, "What are you going to do with him, when he's a pretty girl?"

"Gather the ingredients for a resurrection," Myrtle said, "Get all reembodied, collect up Olive, marry her and about ten girls, have dozens of babies."

"You know that there's a whole bunch of points where your plan could blow up in your face?"

"Yeah, but even one girl's better than ghosting around Hogwarts, and I already tried taking over the world, and it totally failed to make me happy. Being Tom-the-Jade actually made me happy, happier than when I first saw Hogwarts, hugging Olive really made me happy, so I'm gonna try to be happy."

"OK, then," Amy stood, pulled Taylor up, then Lisa.

"Thank you," Myrtle said.

~*T*~


	32. Harry 16

~*T*~

Hermione parked across the street and a few blocks down from the diner. Harry locked his door, held the handle, and closed it. The turbo timer killed the engine as they walked away.

"Bourbon and Canal," Harry read off the corner signs, "Named after the streets in New Orleans?"

"I don't think so," Hermione offered, "I'm pretty sure this area was plotted in the 1820s, so it would be parallel development, but," she shrugged.

The diner offered "New Orleans Style Cafe Au Lait," and beignet, so Hermione ordered for them.

~*i*~

"So," Hermione asked, "What is pretty?"

Cricket looked at herself in the mirror, downstairs in the Undersider's warehouse lair, the high-bay lights cast a bluish tint, washed out her skin tone, "What can you do?"

"Taller, shorter, curvier, flatter, hands, feet, face, ears, whatever."

Cricket just stared at herself, silent, then shrugged out of her jacket, "Same height, same proportions, longer, more slender hands and feet, face a little rounder, nose a little less prominent, both boobs the same size, finish removing the tattoos."

A moment later she nodded, "Perfect. Can you fix my nose to make girls smell sexy?"

"Maybe. Why?"

"Because they," she paused, "Because boys," she paused again, started pacing, agitated, "Because I suck! And maybe if girls were sexy I could find someone who'd put up with my suckiness, without feeling too put-upon, and," she let out a shrill, frustrated, noise.

"I'm sure there's plenty of boys who'd be happy to put up with you," Hermione said, "But I can fix your nose, too, if you want."

"Please. And I don't believe that there are that many boys who'd put up with me. I've dated plenty who couldn't."

"Maybe the problem was that they were Nazis rather than that they were boys."

"Eh, there were a few before the Empire, and they were just the same."

"You do know the poster, right?"

"Yes, I am the one person in all of my failed relationships. So therapy."

"And liking girls."

"I've always liked girls, they just weren't sexy."

~*i*~

Harry climbed out of Hermione's passenger seat, and pulled the lever to flip it forward. Cricket released her seatbelt herself and unfolded from the back seat, stretched a moment, "Thank you," she offered.

"You're welcome," Harry replied.

~*i*~

The Great and Powerful Turtle hovered to the left. This was version two, or maybe three, of her shell, sloped armor of mild steel ship-hull plate, three or four layers with air gaps between, periscopic vision blocks, and a pair of matching clawed grabbers on chains. Shadow Stalker sat on top, braced by a lifting-ring.

Yuubara, night rose, as she'd chosen, stood on the right, swirling the chain of her new kusarigama,

Hermione stood next to Harry, the Beast in her arms, and Luna stood beside her.

"Hello, Merchants!" Harry yelled, her voice booming over the apartment complex the gang had appropriated, "You should come out and surrender, before we come in there and pull you out."

"You wouldn't dare!" Someone yelled back, and fired an RPG out a window at The Great and Powerful Turtle.

She dropped, Shadow Stalker going incorporeal, and the RPG glanced off the top of her shell, flailing into the distance.

"You forgot the safety, assmung!" someone yelled inside.

"Sic 'em, Fluffy," Hermione told the Beast.

Another RPG roars from a ground-floor window, and hit The Great and Powerful Turtle's shell about two feet up from the front edge, in the center of her glacis, and detonated. The spear of copper plasma cut into the steel, burned instantly through the first layer, spread a bit on the first air gap, burned through the second layer almost as fast, spread again on the third air gap, and barely cut through the third layer of steel before it spread again, momentum dissipated.

"Shit," The Great and Powerful Turtle yelled, darted forward, claws snapping.

The Beast of Caerbannog bounded forward at her side.

~*i*~

Yuubara listened for survivors and The Great and Powerful Turtle dug them out, giant claws lifting chunks of rubble and setting them aside.

Glory Girl arrived before the PRT, and admired the mess, "They complain about me and collateral damage," she said.

"Yeah, they hit The Great and Powerful Turtle with an RPG, so she took the fight to them," Luna said, "And Amy sic'd the Beast on them."

"Any survivors?"

"Yuubara and Taylor are finding them, Amy's healing, could you help the Turtle," The Great and Powerful Turtle's shell turned in their direction, "Sorry, The Great and Powerful Turtle, dig them out?"

"No problem."

~*i*~

Hermione was cuddling the Beast, even as Brandish glared at the collapsed building, "How many civilians?"

"None," Harry answered, "They all left when the Merchants took the top floor."

"How many unarmed Merchants?"

"Maybe ten, but most of those had weapons nearby. A couple might have been capes, but we haven't checked."

"Amy? Why not?"

"They're too dead for my power to give me a useful read on them."

"OK. How many live capes?"

"We've got three, two male, one female," Luna said, "Mush, Chariot, and Squealer, probably."

"Skidmark? Whirlygig?"

"Skidmark tried to fight the Beast," a gesture to the rows of bodies with their severed heads on their chests.

Brandish nodded.

"Whirlygig might not have been here, or might be dead."

"Your team OK?"

Harry nodded, "The Great and Powerful Turtle took two RPGs to the shell. The first didn't go off, the second came within an inch of steel plate of killing her."

"I'm glad she's OK."

"We are too," Amy said, gave the Beast a bit of a squeeze. It cuddled into her, and licked more blood from its paws.

"Your team is rather rough on your opponents," Brandish noted.

"Proportional response. Words for words, lethal force for lethal force."

Brandish's shoulders slumped a bit, and she nodded grimly, "It's much more fun when it doesn't go that far."

~*T*~


	33. Taylor 17

~*T*~

"Good enough?" Amy asked.

Myrtle looked Peter up and down. He was the same height, but more muscular, and the spare tire around his middle had been re-arranged, shifted north and south, giving a lovely hourglass figure.

Peter was staring at his face, and his long, flowing hair, in the mirror. "I'm so pretty! And these boobs," He hefted them, "Jiggle jiggle."

He turned to Amy, "You can make me a boy again, right?"

"If you get bored of your boobies," she agreed.

"They are awesome," Peter bragged.

"They are," Myrtle agreed. She darted in and gave Peter a peck on the lips, "This should do quite well."

"I'm glad we could help," Amy said.

Peter's fingers drifted to his lips.

~*i*~

"Let's go swimming," Amy said, pulling her wives towards the stairs.

They clattered happily after, leather soles loud on the stone. They trekked through the damp grass, still wet with dew an hour past noon, pale Scottish sun not warming them.

They followed the thestral-path into the woods, paused to pet the warm, leathery creatures when they came out to greet them.

"I'm sorry, we didn't bring any meat today," Amy was saying.

"Tyson?" Lisa asked.

"May I help miss Lovegood?"

"Could I get some snacks for the thestrals?"

"Just a moment," he said, and vanished again. He came back with a bucket of raw meat a moment later, "Livers, kidneys, hearts, and spleens," he said, "All of their favorites."

The bucket was soon empty, and the thestrals licked the girl's hands and faces mostly clean with scratchy, catlike tongues. The empty bucket disappeared.

Taylor looked at her wives, "Shall we?" she asked, smiling.

"Let's go," Lisa said, and vanished with a **crack**.

St. Elmo's fire washed over the clearing, and Taylor vanished.

Amy hopped forward, and dropped out of sight.

~*i*~

Amy landed, bending her knees to absorb the short fall, and looked around their Hebridean island. Lisa's already in the water, her clothes tossed every which-way. Taylor's picking them up, so she's still fully dressed. Amy shed her clothes into a pile by Lisa's skirt, and dashed for the water.

Taylor followed after a minute.

~*i*~

"Superluminal," Taylor said, as they splashed about, a little tired, resting.

"Faster than light?" Amy asked.

"A book, by Vonda McIntyre, has this boy who's a diver, a modified human, and mentions how he had to learn how to evert his testicles," Taylor said.

"Oh, yeah," Lisa said, "That one's Starfarers, Superluminal was much earlier and had a girl diver."

"Well, I stand," Taylor paused, "Swim, corrected."

"So you want to get your penis out of the water?" Amy asked.

"The never cold thing is nice, too."

"I'm even less likely to get your genetics back to your baseline than if I turn you straight into a girl," Amy warned.

Taylor shrugged, "It's not like I had much in the way of boobs anyway, and my penis keeps trying to print on my clothes, so pouching it would keep me male until we've fixed the de jure sexism of the British Wizarding World, without me having to fuss with it so much."

Lisa laughed.

~*i*~

Lisa looked peculiarly pensive that evening, even as robes were shed and shoes kicked off.

Taylor noted the expression, "Bath?"

Amy nodded, "Luna?"

Lisa nodded, "Sure."

~*i*~

"What's bothering you."

"Peter."

"Why?"

"That was the first time he'd been kissed by a non family member."

"Oh. How old was he?" Amy asked, shifting to gather Lisa in her arms.

"Thirty-fucking-two. He didn't even get kissed as a pet."

"That kinda sucks," Taylor agreed, moving into the group hug. The bathwater sloshed softly back and forth a few times before it went still again.

~*i*~

"So," Peter, he, he paused, admired his breasts, showing in the square neckline of the ancient dress robes they'd found _her_ in the room of lost things, _she_ might want a new name. She continued after a short moment, "What's first, boss?"

"Bones of my father," Myrtle said, "But I'm a girl now, so bones of my mother, too."

"A spot of graverobbing, then?"

"No, they're still alive."

"Eww, that'll be messy. I'll have to look up how to get blood out of my hair."

"No, switching spell. They'll be fine."

"Oh. Are you going to tell them?"

"Later. Once I'm back alive again."

"OK."

"I killed my father once. I thought vengeance would make me feel better."

"Did it?"

"No, it really didn't. I think I felt worse, actually, Peter."

"A pretty girl should have a pretty name," Peter said, "I can't think of one, though."

"Hazel?"

Peter shook her head.

"Amaryllis?"

"What's that?"

"Belladona lily."

Peter thought a minute, as they walked, then shook her head, "Too many bad connotations."

"Wisteria?"

"Not a flower."

"Broccoli."

"I said no flowers,' Peter smiled, looking at Myrtle, her face soft and happy.

~*i*~

"It was nice while it lasted," Lisa sighed, cuddling tight to Amy.

"What?" Taylor asked, rubbed sleep from her eyes, her other arm still trapped under Lisa.

"The almost entirely not horny."

"I could fix that for you," Amy said, just as quietly.

"No," Lisa sighed again, "I don't want to be a lost boy, or have to put up with puberty again later, so we might as well suffer through now."

Taylor swept Lisa's hair aside, and planted a light kiss on the back of her neck.

~*i*~

"What's this?" Peter held up one of the clear pouches of fluid Myrtle had her steal.

"Sterile saline solution. You'll swap it for my parent's lowest ribs."

"The whole bag?"

"Just enough to fill the space the ribs came from."

"Don't they need those?"

"People remove their own, sometimes."

"Really, why?"

"To fit a tighter corset, or allow themselves more flexibility."

"Why would they need to be more flexible so badly they'd remove their own bones?"

"Autofellatio."

Peter blinked, "People remove their ribs so they can suck their own dicks."

"Not many, but yes."

"Anyone I knew?"

"Yes."

Peter waited.

~*T*~


	34. Harry 17

~*T*~

"I'm bored," Alec greeted them, "Can I help you destroy gangs?"

"I don't know, how would you help?"

"Fetch donuts and make coffee?"

"Sounds good, you're hired, how's 60 thou a year sound?"

"Aren't I already getting paid?"

"Yeah, but it's hard to have a car and rent a place on 24 thou a year."

"Yeah, that might be nice. Can you get me legal enough to drive?"

"Hmm," Luna thought a moment, "It'll take a bunch of lawyering."

"Take it out of my new wages."

Luna smiled, "I'll do that."

~*i*~

"Yeah, he appeared in front of me, handed me the note, and dissolved into ash," Yuubara said, a little shaken, "If he'd handed me a grenade I'd be dead."

"You probably would have had time to throw it."

"Not for sure, and not far enough."

"What's the note say?"

"Lung wants to discuss terms."

"For what?"

"His continued operations."

~*i*~

"Uahh," Anne sighed, "Time to make a new shell, already," she wiggled her finger into the small hole in the outermost plate, "How much more," she paused, "Worse? dangerous? do anti-armor weapons get?"

"Pretty fucking bad, freckles," Sophia sighed, taking off her mask.

"How much armor do I need?"

"If you're using mild steel? Another five layers and you might be safe from everything you couldn't see coming," she paused, "Well, laser-guided 155 rounds would probably kill you, but not puncture your shell."

"Oh, joy."

"Unless the Army's after you, or the air force, double your armor thickness and you should be safe from anything hand-held. Three-foot diameter EFP buried in the street, a couple thousand pounds of HE in the storm sewer, those'd kill you, but they'd be obvious, so Taylor should know about them before you're in danger."

"You say the sweetest, most comforting things, you know that?"

"Anything to get a kiss from a pretty girl with freckles."

"Yeah, right."

"Really."

Anne held out her index and middle fingers, "Lick."

She moaned as Sophia wrapped her tongue around them.

Sophia smiled back around her fingers.

~*i*~

Harry set the last cone on an orange X, looked around, and started back to where she'd parked, where Luna was leaning on the little blue car.

"She needs a name," she said, when she got to the car, looked up to the sky, "Is it going to rain?"

"Yeah, your Miata does need a name," Luna agreed, "And the rain'll hold off for a few hours."

Harry climbed inside, unzipped the back window, and laid it flat on the towel, then put another towel over it. She squirmed around, opened the latch on the passenger side, then the drivers, and folded the top back. She flipped open the lid for the center console, then pulled the lever for the trunk release. She closed the drivers side latch on her way to the trunk. The top boot is retrieved, the trunk closed again, and she folded the passenger side latch closed.

She installed the boot over the top, plastic channel at the back, and pull-to-release snaps to hold it down in the front.

Luna watched, smiling, "So you like her?"

Harry blinked, eyes shiny, "You gave her to me," she said, then grinned, "And she's very pretty."

"I'm glad," Luna said.

~*i*~

Harry watched the tach, 5,000 RPM, checked the course again, lot empty, and let the clutch out, Luna quiet in the passenger seat. The tires chirped, then the car surged forward, 2, 3, brake, left, gas, 3, brake, right, 2, gas, brake, left, gas . . .

"That was a lot of fun," Harry told Luna about thirty seconds later, "Thank you," and leaned in for a kiss.

~*i*~

"You ever wonder if Amy did something to you to make you like girls?" Anne carded her fingers through Sophia's wooly black hair.

"Nope," Sophia said, "Girls have been it for me since, like, I could walk. Taylor just showed me that the world wouldn't end if I actually admitted it."

"It's twenty-fucking-eleven, and you were worried about being gay?"

"Might not have been a Nazi, but I heard a lot of hostile-life-environment jokes in my neighborhood."

"I never liked anyone until after I met Amy, then, it's like, oh, her hair's gorgeous, I want to run my fingers through it. She's so pretty, I want to kiss her. He's kinda cute, could I get away with hugging him?" She paused, "I really like your hair better this way."

"It's such a bother, though. I hate washing it."

"Might be why some people go for dreadlocks," Anne said, "Could I wash it for you?"

"That's a bit past friends with benefits."

Anne met her gaze, "Would you be my girlfriend and let me wash your glorious afro?"

"Let me think about it."

Anne slumped, flopped over on the bed, crossed her arms over the covers, and pouted. Mightily.

"OK, I've thought about it, that sounds wonderful."

Anne kept pouting.

Sophia rolled over on top of her, braced her hands on either side of her shoulders, "Would you be my girlfriend, and help wash this kinky mess of hair you like?"

Anne's lips twitched, then she went back to pouting.

"Please?" Sophia asked, leaning in close, staring down into the other girl's bright green eyes, "Please?"

"OK," Anne said, then wrapped her arms around Sophia's neck to pull herself up for a kiss.

~*i*~

"Makoto," Harry said. He nodded decisively for emphasis.

"Oh?" Hermione asked, continuing to read her book.

"For the Miata."

"OK," Luna smiled, "Why?"

"It means sincerely, or something close to that," Harry answered.

"And?" Luna prompted.

Harry blushed just the tips of his ears turning pink, "Favorite Sailor Moon character."

"Why's that?" Hermione asked, closing her book around her fingers.

"Curly brown hair and green eyes? Tough but vulnerable?" the blush spread down his ears.

"Um?"

Harry looked down and away.

Luna looked at him a moment, then explained, "Your hair and his eyes? On a girl who needs only a tiny bit of looking after, who's growing up to be an independent person?"

Hermione's eyes widened, she smiled, and her cheeks tinged pink, "That's a nice thought."

Harry looked up, and smiled back.

~*T*~


	35. Taylor 18

~*T*~.

"Who removed his own ribs?"

"Guess!"

"I've guessed almost everyone I knew," Peter said sadly.

"Then you're almost there!" Myrtle laughed at her, then swooped down and planted another peck on her lips.

"I like it when you do that," Peter said before she could censor herself.

"I'm glad," Myrtle smiled, brushed her fingers through Peter's hair.

Peter shivered.

~*i*~

"Maybe I didn't think this out as well as I should have," Taylor said, checking her tight sleeves.

"Yeah, we're going to have to buy you new clothes before long," Amy agreed, "But the added fat helps maintain the higher metabolism, and helps reduce your volume to surface area ratio."

"And it's sexy, but not in the same way as your old, tall, slender, muscular self was," Lisa wrapped her arms around Taylor and gave her a hard squeeze.

~*i*~

"That your mum?" Peter asked.

"Yes," Myrtle answered.

"What's her name?"

"Rhonda."

"How'd you get stuck -" Peter, too late, decided there had to be a better way to phrase that.

"I have no idea. I had a bad feeling it was because they conceived me under the crepe myrtle, but it could be they just liked the idea of my name rhyming with both fertile and turtle."

"Ouch."

Peter waved her wand, and there were two short ribs in one of the clear pouches.

~*i*~

"Shh," Lisa said, curled into a chair in the library, Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem cuddled to her sternum, "I know you're scared, the world can be a very hard place, but it will be OK, there's no need for panic, shh. Amy and Taylor will still love us, and the world will be the same as it ever was."

She patted her pet rock, listening, as much to what he wasn't saying as what he was.

"You don't have to worry about that," Lisa smiled at him, "I lost my blood innocence a long time ago. Some people just need killing."

She listened a moment, "Yeah, probably a lot of the people you killed didn't need killing. Could you have brought them back?" She stroked along the smooth dark green surface of the rock, "Yeah, so you can only work to do better in the future, and work to make a better world, where people don't suffer as much, where governments don't disappear people by the thousands, where death squads don't run rampant through Africa, and Russian girls aren't selling themselves into prostitution as the Soviet Union collapses. If we can figure out a way to keep Afghanistan from collapsing into fundamentalist totalitarianism, that would be good, too, because we'll have Muslim fundie terrorists for **decades** if we let them really get rolling."

She nodded along, "Yeah, endbringer attacks destroyed several major oil fields, which cut their funding at a critical point. Iran being hit first took the wind out of the Shii'a fundie's sails, and the chaos involved led to another Iraqi invasion of Iran, instead of them invading Kuwait."

She patted the rock, "Yeah, the Americans led a coalition last fall to drive the Iraqi's back out of Kuwait, and they're currently losing the peace after they won the war."

A flicker of movement made her look up, "Oh, dinner time." She rolled off the chair onto her feet, tore down her privacy spells, and tucked Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem into her pocket.

~*i*~

"Huh," Taylor said, putting down the paper, "Looks like Barty Crouch, Jr. is still alive, and on his way back to Azkaban, with his father this time."

"Oh?" Lisa asked.

"Yep. Sixty arrests and sixty convictions for using the Imperious curse in the last month."

"And none in the previous ten years," Amy sighed, "Probably the Taboo."

"What?" Lisa looked between them, then down at Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem, "Yeah, probably."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, they'd have the space for two trigger words in the matrix, wouldn't they?" Taylor agreed, "Probably the killing curse, and the torture curse, if Crouch was using the Imperious on his son."

" . . . " Lisa opened her mouth, sighed, and closed it again.

Taylor leaned in and gave her a proper kiss, and Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem a peck.

Amy reversed the order.

Someone scoffed from across the great hall.

~*i*~

"There's me da," Myrtle bounced.

Peter's eyes followed, up and down, and she blushed as she turned to look for Myrtle's father.

"That her?"

"Yup!"

"They shoulda known better."

"They were kinda old when they had me, like thirty or something. They probably weren't thinking about what kids are like when they chose my name. Ribs!"

Another switching spell, and another pair of rib bones floated in a clear pouch of fluid.

~*i*~

"Third year," Taylor stroked her chin, "Why?"

"Because you're obviously not being challenged by the first year work."

Taylor frowned, opened her mouth.

"Hem, hem," Lisa stopped her, "We've just started making friends, and the third years all know each other well already," she told McGonagall.

"We could pass," Amy started. Lisa poked her in her side. Amy looked at her, then continued, "Our OWLs right now, but we would do better if we had our classes first, I'm sure."

"What they said," Taylor agreed, "There's no need to hurry, the Dark Lord is not coming back this year, and if he was, the difference between first and third year isn't going to make a difference."

"Could we offer you more work, then?"

The three girls crossed gazes. Matching smiles crept across their faces, lifted the corners of their eyes, spread into grins, then into cackling laughter.

"Yes," Taylor managed after a bit, giggling, "That would be wonderful."

McGonagall smiled at them, a little confused.

~*i*~

Peter set the two clear pouches of fluid and ribs in the potions cabinet they had cleared in the room of lost things, "What's next? You said it was around here."

Myrtle nodded, "We need my others as well," she said, "Go wait in my old bathroom."

Peter curtsied, lifting her skirts as she bent her knees, exposing her sheer, black, stockings, "Yes, my lady."

Myrtle let her straighten, then moved in for a kiss.

Peter returned it eagerly, smiled as Myrtle pulled back, "Thank you, my lady."

"You are most welcome. Now go, I'll be there soon."

Peter nodded, then made her way out is a swirl of skirts.

~*T*~


	36. Harry 18

~*T*~

"Thank you," Harry told Alec, accepted a cup of coffee.

Alec proffered the box of hot coffee to Lung.

Lung looked at it, then nodded, "Please.'

He took the paper cup, then a donut from the box.

He pushed his mask up a little, blew on his coffee, looking around the park from his side of the picnic table.

The Great and Powerful Turtle hovered, almost on the ground, by the white van.

Shadow Stalker, as usual, was on top of The Great and Powerful Turtle's shell, looking out of the park. The Beast of Caerbannog sat on the van's dashboard, nose almost to the windshield.

Luna and Hermione nursed their cups of coffee, standing at Harry's back.

Oni Lee and a woman in red stood behind Lung.

"So, you wanted to talk?" Harry asked, after a second donut.

Lung nodded, "You took out the other gangs first. Why?"

"Coil was threatening my people. I bought off the Undersiders because one of my girls had worked with them. Nazis are a threat to peace everywhere. The Merchants had no sense."

"And us?"

"Tell the whores they can quit, and let them quit safely when or if they want. Don't interfere as we unionize the workers."

"That's it?"

"That's the big one. Make sure you're providing more protection than "We won't beat you up" to your security clients."

"Not a problem, we already do that."

"Then, so long as your activities continue to involve the informed consent of the participants, we have nothing to worry about."

"That is good," Lung finished his coffee, "Thank you for your time." He stood, and bowed.

Harry stood, and bowed back, to approximately the same depth, "It was nice to talk to you."

"Likewise. We'll be in touch."

~*i*~

"What's up with just letting them go?" The Great and Powerful Turtle asked quietly as they watched the ABB group climb into vehicles and drive off.

"Getting in a stand-up fight with those three would be," Harry paused, "Much worse than the Merchants. I think the Beast would have a hard time with Oni Lee."

"Oh."

"Yeah, and the girl in red is a bomb tinker. She can make amazing toys. She's also a bit bugfuck nuts."

"So what's the plan?" Shadow Stalker asked.

"If they abide by the agreement we just made? They get to keep playing honorable businessman, and we coordinate money-making opportunities."

"If they don't?"

"We reveal capabilities that I'd prefer to keep secret."

"That sounds fun."

"It won't be flashy, but it'll be quick."

~*i*~

"Are we there yet?" Harry asked, half whining and half laughing.

"Mt. Washington," Hermione answered, "Is supposed to be a two hour drive to the base of the auto road."

"Slow down," Luna said from the back seat, "52."

Hermione glanced at her speedo, braked, glanced again.

Luna smiled out the back window at the state trooper in the speed trap as they passed.

"Speed limit's dropping to 35, hold it until we get out of town."

~*i*~

"Do you need a cup of water?" Harry asked, as Hermione adjusted her line with a jerk.

"Maybe," Hermione answered, "I need to drive this road a few more times so it stops surprising me."

Luna laughed in the back seat, "Let Harry drive the next round, then you can pay more attention to the road."

~*i*~

"Slow down, someone's coming up and someone's five under in our lane," Luna said.

Harry downshifted, braked lightly, watched for the traffic. A pickup truck passed them going uphill, and there were the brake lights in front of them. Double yellow through the curve. Harry hugged the center of the lane, dashes ahead, downshifted again, and pulled up close to the car ahead. As soon as the double yellow ended she checked the road, signaled, and passed at twenty over, with an upshift in the pass and another one once she was back in her own lane.

~*i*~

"Hello," the tall, pretty girl with amber eyes called. She looked around the shop again, still no sign of anyone, and admired one of the costumes on a mannequin.

"Yes?" a soft, pretty voice said from behind her.

She turned, taking in the slight form before her, loligoth dress, blonde wig, white porcelain mask, no skin showed at all.

"I'm looking for a costume," she waved a hand at her current outfit, woodland BDUs and Zorro mask, "This is my work uniform, but I'd like something prettier, too, even if I don't know when I'll get to wear it."

"Oh?"

"Shadow Stalker gets to wear her own costume, but The Great and Powerful Turtle wears this uniform in her shell."

Parian nods, "What sort of theme?"

"I really don't know," she shrugged, smiled, "My last costume was," she paused, "Probably more bad than bad-ass, and certainly not pretty."

"What's your name?"

"My hero name's Yuubara, but pretty girls can call me Miya," she blushed, a tiny hint of red to her cheeks and the tips of her ears.

Parian laughed, a soft, delighted sound, "Oh, you flirt!" she said, and brushed Miya's hand with her gloved fingertips.

Miya's cheeks flared, and she looked down and to the right, "Sorry."

Gentle fingers pulled her face back up, to meet the eyes of Parian's mask, "That wasn't a complaint, so I don't want an apology. If my flirting makes you uncomfortable, I'll stop."

"It only makes me uncomfortable because I suck. I'd love," she stopped, "It was really nice."

"OK," Parian gave Miya's hand a squeeze, "From the hero name, you want a Japanese theme?"

Miya nodded.

"Weapons? Abilities you want your theme to reflect?"

"I use a kusarigama, and I agree with my team's idea that advertising abilities is asking for a sniper's bullet or sneak attack on your vulnerabilities."

"Hmm, Ninja?"

Miya shook her head.

"Evil schoolgirl? Like Gogo from Kill Bill?"

"She was pretty cool, but no."

"I'll have to do some research, then. I'll find some ideas, draw up some sketches?"

"That would be amazing, thank you," Miya had been practicing, and her thank you sounded nearly normal.

~*T*~


	37. Taylor 19

~*T*~.

"Hey," Myrtle accosted the three girls, and Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem, "I need your help a few minutes."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, next ingredient I need is blood of an enemy, and I have one who killed me."

"What do you need?"

"I need someone to collect blood and someone to hold her nose, and I've only got Peter."

"Ah. Let us put our projects up, and we'll meet you there."

~*i*~

"So why are we going to hold a basilisk's nose?" Amy asked.

"She doesn't like it, so to fulfill some harvesting requirement, probably."

Lisa sighed, "Do Tom's other rocks keep you around, too?"

"I think, but don't want to test, all of us would have to be killed."

"That's good. See, Tom, I wasn't lying, we will be loved forever."

Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem cuddled closer.

Lisa gave him a pat.

~*i*~

"So," Taylor told Lisa, "There's a pressure point right inside her nostril, put your thumb on the outside, reach in, and squeeze."

The basilisk stiffened, " _That hurts! Why are you doing that!?_ " She tried to pull back, and Taylor squeezed a little harder, " _Oww! Stop!_ "

" _Don't move,_ " Amy told her, " _She's getting a vial of blood, then we can let you go._ "

" _Oww! Bitch! I'm gonna bite you if you stab me!_ "

"It's just a little needle," Peter called, wielding a horse syringe, with a 12-gauge needle.

" _You're lying! I can smell it!_ "

"It'd be a big needle to me, but I'm a lot smaller than you are!" Peter said, before she stabbed the needle under the scale Myrtle indicated.

" _I'm gonna get you! Eat you, shit out your bones, and crush your skull under my belly!_ "

" _All done!_ " Myrtle said, " _If you promise not to hurt my Peter you can go into the forest and eat as many giant spiders as you can catch!_ "

" _How giant?_ "

" _Bigger than horses._ "

" _OK, I won't hurt your Peter, even if she's a horrible, snake-tormenting bitch._ "

" _Stay away from the centaurs, they're dangerous,_ " Taylor said, letting go of the basilisk's nose, " _It's nice to see you again,_ " she gave her a quick kiss on the snout, " _Sorry 'bout the hold, but you needed to be upset about the blood._ "

" _Oh, OK. Can I go eat spiders now?_ "

" _Yes, you can,_ " Myrtle told her.

~*i*~

"Barty Crouch, Jr!" Peter called suddenly.

"What?" Taylor asked.

"You're right. Two more," Myrtle said.

"Rib removal," Lisa elaborated.

"Oh, yes. Yuck."

"Why were you talking about removing ribs?"

"Bones of my mother, blood of my enemy, and flesh of my servant, at the winter solstice, the rebirth of the year."

Peter turned to Amy, "Can you grow parts back? The more important the part is to me, the better the ritual will work, but," she cups and jiggles, "I'd really miss one of them. If you can't," she shrugs, "But I'd like Myrtle to be able to play with them properly."

"I should be able to. Where are you going to do the ritual?"

"We're talking about the room of lost things, but I'm not sure about overflow," Myrtle said, "Typically this ritual is very dark, and done at the summer solstice, when the year starts downhill."

"Hmm," Amy said, "Typically it is also done with an intent to spread misery and death, too."

"I don't know," Myrtle said, "I'd prefer to do it somewhere else, anyway."

"Oh, and while I'm asking favors," Peter said, "I want a prettier name, but," she shrugged again, "We haven't found one we liked."

"Elisabeth," Taylor started out naming British queens.

Myrtle shook her head.

"Mary."

Peter rubbed her chin with her knuckles, then shook her head.

"Victoria."

Peter looked at Myrtle, cocked her head to the side. Myrtle returned a half-shrug and a smile.

"I think I like that."

~*i*~

The Basilisk didn't know she wasn't a snake, and it really didn't matter to her as she crept along the spider-trail, eyes squinted mostly closed, nictating membranes closed, navigating as much by smell and thermal sensors. Ever-widening swaths of dead creatures make it hard to be sneaky.

The spiders were at the end of the spider-trail, and the Basilisk opened her eyes wide, gazed over the big, juicy spiders, and they dropped dead. Hundreds stampeded away, and the Basilisk smiled, licked her nose, and started with the biggest.

Crunchy, furry exoskeleton made them a little hard to swallow, but she'd grown a lot since the last time she had spiders. Spiders, like locusts, don't have eyelids, making them much easier to catch, and a baby basilisk's favorite food. She wiggled her neck from side to side, shoving the first spider down her throat.

After the second spider she looked over her pile of food, huffed, and swallowed a third.

She nuzzled a fourth large spider, sighed, and started back to her room, " _Maybe I can bring someone to collect my_ _food?_ "

~*i*~

" _Hello_?"

" _Hello_!"

" _HELLO_."

" _HELLO_!"

" _What, I was asleep_."

" _Oh, sorry. I have a lot of dead spiders, could you pick them up for me? And preserve them for later_?"

" _Human_ refrigerator, _how glamorous_ ," Taylor complained, " _Sure, let's go_."

~*i*~

Taylor, barefoot in her nightgown, hopped off the Basilisk's back. " _How many of these do you want?_ "

" _All of them?_ "

 _"How small of a spider will you eat? Most of these guys are crab size and smaller._ "

The Basilisk pondered a moment, " _Big enough._ "

" _This big?_ " Taylor pointed at a spider the size of a large dog.

" _Yeah, about that big._ "

~*i*~

Taylor stuffs the last preserved spider into a corner, " _All done._ "

" _Thank you,_ " the Basilisk said, then rubbed the side of her face against Taylor's side.

Taylor giggled, and patted her nose, " _Good night_."

~*T*~


	38. Harry 19

~*T*~

Harry flopped onto the Undersider's bloodstained white couch, and watched Luna and Alec play Gran Turismo for a few minutes. He twisted, throwing his feet over the back of the couch, and leaned his head off the seat, his hair streaming towards the floor. After a while it seemed that watching the other two drive the TV was no more interesting upside down than it was right side up, and she curled into a ball and went to sleep.

~*i*~

"Hey, pretty girl," Hermione brushed Harry's hair back.

She blinked up sleepily, "M a boy."

"Really?"

"Think so," he sat up, "How long was I out?"

"A few hours."

"Luna finally win her game?"

"By fifteen seconds."

~*i*~

"Welcome," Luna said, opening the door under the cloth banner that read "McFeely."

"You have an edifice," Hermione teased, "Do we need to watch for signs of an edifice complex?"

"I'm not going to be seducing, much less marrying, either of your parents, Amy," Luna teased back.

Harry laughed at them.

~*i*~

"Once more," Luna laughed, hitting the record button.

"You have reached McFeely's Taxi. For Pickup and Molestation," Hermione read.

"No, not molestation, Transportation!" Harry interrupted.

"Sorry, For Pickup and Transportation, please press One," Hermione finished, without laughing this time.

"Perfect," Luna said.

They listened to the whole first level of the call tree.

"Let's re-record number nine," Hermione said.

Luna poked the computer a moment, then noddod, "When you're ready."

"For complaints," Hermione read, "Press Nine to go to Helen Hunt."

"Got it."

Harry snickered.

~*i*~

"Hey," Miya said, awkward, dressed in a mid-calf-length black skirt, combat boots, and a short-sleeved blue blouse.

Parian looked her up and down, "What kinds of armament are you hiding? You're too calm to be as unarmed as you look."

"Yeah, a few knives and a short sword."

"Lazarus Long was right," Parian had a smile in her voice, "You can hide an armory under a kilt."

"Could you help me with that? Much shorter than this and Anne noticed I was carrying."

"You still have a roommate?"

"When I make an appointment, anyway."

"I can probably help you with your armory-hiding." Parian asked, "But I don't think that is what you came by for."

"Would you accompany me to a movie?"

Parian's head tilted to one side, and her shoulders slumped a bit, "I'm not the only lesbian in town."

"No, you're not, but I really enjoy your company, you're kinda awesome, you're way too pretty for me, and I'm really sorry my suckiness hurt you."

"I probably should have showed you my face before I agreed to a date out of costume," Parian said.

"I shoulda told you I ran with the Nazis until they got wiped out," Miya looked at the floor while she toed it with her boot.

"Why did you?"

"Tall blonde girl? Trying to fight her way out of her problems? Didn't think anyone else in town would help me with that."

Parian grabbed Miya's hand, and cuddled it to her bosom.

"Totally fucked up my vocabulary, particularly when I'm surprised. I'm really sorry."

"We can try a second date," Parian said, pulled Miya's hand up to the porcelain lips of her mask, "I'll buy dinner?"

"OK," Miya said, blinking, eyes shiny, "Thank you."

~*i*~

Hermione gave her Toyota a pat as she walked past, motor idling as the turbo cools, and walked up the driveway to the porch.

A young woman of about twenty five with a short brown bob answered at her knock, "Come in, we were waiting for you," she said. She closed the door behind Hermione, and followed her to the living room, "Ah've a fresh pot of coffee, would you like some?"

"Yes, please," Hermione answered, and took the indicated seat opposite the young black man on the other couch, "How are you doing, Laurence?"

"Quite well. I didn't realize just how much youth is wasted on the young until now."

Hermione laughs, "Indeed."

She sat and chatted with him and Myrtle for a couple cups of coffee.

"I really must be going, but I'm glad things seem to be working out for you so far."

"It's been really different," Laurence agreed, "Thank you, and feel free to come by again," he offered his hand to shake.

Hermione shook it, "It's been a pleasure."

"Ah hope to see you again soon," Myrtle offered her own hand.

Hermione shook it, too, "We'll see. I think it can be arranged, anyway."

~*i*~

"I've got some," Harry paused, "Oh, they called her the Butcher, so they're probably Teeth. Certainly dressed like it," she turned to Luna, "How do capes, particularly villains, get away with driving around on the interstates in costume?"

"I don't know? Luck? Or insufficient armament in the hands of the highway patrol?"

"That'd be a perfect reason to call out the Army. An Apache or two would totally deal with most of the villain groups," Hermione nodded.

"Where are they?"

"Sedated, in the parking lot of the strip mall on Conniption at I-95."

Harry and Luna pulled their Zorro masks on.

"Let's go," they took Harry's hands, and he apparated them to by the dumpster.

Hermione dialed as they walked. She didn't press the call button until she'd brushed her toes over all of the collapsed villains, "Hello, yeah, Amy Dallon again. We have ten parahumans dressed as Butcher and the Teeth, with four vehicles. Some idiot has a minigun modified for handheld use, and they have a number of other firearms. The strip mall at Conniption and I-95. We'll wait. Thank you."

~*i*~

"Are you looking at boys?" Sophia asked, her fingers clinching on Anne's arm hard enough to make her wince.

"Yup," Anne said, "We both look at girls, too," she said. She pulled Sophia's eyes to her own, "Just because I like looking doesn't mean I'm gonna touch, OK? I look at cats and flowers, too, y'know? Acknowledging that they're pretty doesn't mean I'm gonna cheat."

"Hmmph," Sophia bent her knees, and tucked her head, rather awkwardly, under Anne's chin, "Like your friend Miya, I suck sometimes."

"Only sometimes?" Anne asked, with a teasing lilt, "You suck every time I ask you to."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Miya's therapist seems to be helping her out a lot."

"Yeah, that's nice," Sophia smiled, "How's she doing with Sabah?"

"Friends again, I think."

~*T*~


	39. Taylor 20

~*T*~.

"Um," Myrtle's Victoria looked terribly nervous.

"Um," she said again.

"Yes?" Taylor asked, not unkindly.

"I'm sorry!"

"What for?"

"I betrayed, I was the secret keeper, I told you where your parents were hiding, I cut off my finger when Sirius found me, they threw him in Azkaban, and I," she broke off, "He kinda was my friend, and he didn't do anything, and they haven't let him out."

"Huh," Taylor gathered Victoria's hands in her own, "Amy grew your finger back?"

"Yeah, it was this one," Victoria held it out and touched it with her other hand.

"What are we going to do about that?" Taylor asked, "We can't turn you in, you're Myrtle's, and I doubt Amy could get you all the way back to the way you were before, anyway."

"Blame Crouch?"

"You're brilliant!" Taylor said, and gave the woman a hug.

"Thank you," she hugged back, blinking, eyes shining.

~*i*~

 **Barty Crouch: No Trial for Black!**

By Rita Skeeter

Lisa dropped the paper, leaned over it, and gave Taylor a kiss.

Since this was in no way a rare occurrence, the only one to complain was baby Malfoy, "People are trying to eat, Potter!"

Taylor gave him the reversed V for Victory. A scattering of laughter and applause greeted the gesture.

~*i*~

"Mmm," the voice woke her as much as, or more than, the hand that rubbed her tummy, slid under, "Taylor," the soft hips that rolled against her butt.

"Lisa, wake up!" Taylor said firmly, rolled. Lisa's hand pulled out of her pants.

Lisa's sleeping face crumpled, and she cuddled closer, "Taylor," she almost whined.

Taylor grabbed her shoulder, gave her a little shake.

"What?" Lisa blinked sleepy blue eyes.

"Molesting me in your sleep again?" Taylor said, lightly teasing.

~*i*~

"That tickles," Amy complained.

The paranoid, in its bones, climbed mostly out of her shirt, and explained in ASL, "I need to practice getting my bones on, it shouldn't take more than ten seconds to unhook them all and get them on, but last time I was still getting dressed when you decided it was safe."

"Well, then lets make your drills part of our morning exercises, how's that?"

The paranoid nods, this set of bones had a neck, "sounds good."

~*i*~

"So I could have a baby?" Victoria paused, "Well, I know that in theory I could have a baby before you changed me, but," she went silent, "Yeah. Anyway. This is permanent? Totally safe for growing babies?"

"Permanent unless you have me change it. As safe as it gets for having babies."

Victoria wrapped Amy in a big hug, "Thank you!" and she bounced out. Jiggled out. Whatever.

~*i*~

A large black dog bounded into the great hall at breakfast, then made a beeline to where Taylor and her wives were sitting.

When he tried to lick Taylor, she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and pulled him back, "No. I don't like dogs, but I will put up with them if they behave."

The dog cocked his head and gave an inquisitive whine.

"No licking. Feet on the floor. Don't smell like a dog."

The dog ducked his head and implored her with his eyes.

"No, you don't need perfume, just a bath at reasonable intervals."

The dog huffed out a sigh, and shifted smoothly into a tall black-haired man with a cultivated scruffle of beard on his chin, "With that many rules I might as well be a human," he pouted.

"How are you doing, Sirius Black?" Lisa asked him.

"Much better, now that I'm out of Azkaban again."

"Able was I, ere I saw Elba," Amy quoted the palindrome.

"Napoleon, wasn't that?" Sirius asked.

"Supposedly," Amy nodded.

"How are ya, Harry?" Sirius asked, a bit sing-song.

"How are ya, Sue?" Taylor asked back, the same way.

Sirius broke down laughing, then sat on the bench next to Taylor. Taylor wrapped an arm around him as his laughter turned to sobbing.

~*i*~

This time, when they climbed through the portrait-hole, no one yelled "Happy Birthday" until after they'd seen the banner and cake.

"I'll take our projects upstairs," Taylor said.

Lisa nodded. She and Amy handed Taylor their bags, and she hauled them off.

"Wait for her to get back," she said, when the rest of the kids looked like they'd be bursting into song.

Taylor clattered back down the stairs, and they celebrated Luna Lovegood's eleventh birthday together.

Sirius howled along as Lisa sang, "Don't play that song, that achey-breakey song, I just might blow up my radio . . ."

Taylor whispered in his ear, "If you don't stop I'm going to kick you, dog abuse or not."

Sirius turned back into a human, and . . . danced . . . maybe . . . until the end of the song.

"I've paid my dues, Time after time . . . " Sirius started singing. Lisa starts to accompany him on the guitar after a bit.

By the second chorus the entire common room is mauling the harmony, "We are the champions, We are the Champions, no time for losers, 'cause we are the Champions of the World . . ."

"Do my knee bends, press ups, touch my toes. Look in the mirror at my pigeon chest, have to put on my clothes 'cause it made me depressed." Lisa shifts to the Kinks after a couple more Queen songs.

Lisa somehow played the opening bells of the song on her guitar, then shifted to the electrified crunch, "When I was small I believed in Santa Claus, though I knew it was my dad . . . "

Taylors eyes got shiny, and she blinked as Lisa got to "Father Christmas, give us your money."

Tears are dripping down Sirius's cheek, and his lips tremble at "Give my father a job 'cause he needs one," and he breaks into sobs at the second, "Give all your toys to the little rich boys."

Taylor climbs in his lap and pulls his head against her shoulder.

~*c*~

I have no idea where 12 Oct came from, but that's Luna's birthday for this story. Luna's WoG birthday is now 13 Feb . . .

~*i*~

Lisa woke, sobbing, and clutched Amy tight, cuddled against her back.

"Hey," Taylor reached over Amy, and was drawn into Lisa, squashing Amy a moment until she could turn over and arrange the smaller girls in her arms.

"There there," she said, petting Lisa's hair.

Taylor nodded against Lisa's shoulder.

~*T*~

13 August 2018 Note: Back from Annual Training. 156 105mm howitzer rounds on Ft. Irwin, convoy ops and dry fire on Camp Roberts. Hot, sweaty, smelly, but fun.

Another pause, while the Author goes back, fleshes out earlier chapters, and rearranges some things to better show the passage of time.

Notes added to the first two chapters, and 3 & 4 expanded and reposted 14 August 2018.

5 & 6 updated & reposted 16 August

7 & 8 updated, reposted 17 August

9 & 10 updated, reposted 19 August

11 & 12 updated, reposted 27 August

13 & 14 updated, reposted 2 Sept

12 November 2018 Note: Today's songs are "We are the Champions" by Queen, "(Wish I could fly like) Superman" and "Father Christmas" by The Kinks.


	40. Harry 20

~*T*~

"Oh, bloody fucking joy," Harry moaned, putting her face in her hands.

"What?"

"Butcher just let herself out of jail."

Luna sighed, "Teleported?"

"Yep. She's down again. Keeping her sedated is going to be a pain."

"Hmm," Hermione sighed, "Really don't know what to do about that."

"Hey, The Great and Powerful Turtle, could you go pick up an escaped prisoner for us?" Luna brought the phone down away from her mouth, asked Harry, "Can you keep her down for half an hour?"

Harry nodded.

Luna brought the phone back up, "That'll be fine, we can wait for you to get dressed."

~*i*~

"This is odd," Dragon said.

Armsmaster looked up, glancing at the website Dragon had up on one of his monitors, "Looks like a throwback to 1994."

"Hand-coded HTML, nothing fancy. The content is what has me a little worried," Dragon highlighted a paragraph.

"That would be a little worrying," Armsmaster agreed. He pulled the cuff of his left sleeve back, looked at the partial words on his wrist, "Make that a lot worrying." He doffed his armor and pulled his shirt off.

He read the words on his wrist aloud, "Healing Factor Version 1.0.1," read the first line, and "www dot healingfactor dot org," read the second.

"The website said it went live at the same time that the healing factor was supposed to be activated, April 1st, Midnight, 2011."

"Midnight GMT, looks like," Armsmaster said, then turned from the page he was reading. He looked over his board of carefully shadowboxed tools, and pulled out a small blade on a large handle, and sliced the side of his left index finger with it, right next to a scar from an earlier cut, "Oww."

"Let me see," Dragon demanded.

"Pain response appears normal," Armsmaster said, presenting his finger to the camera, "It stopped bleeding quicker than expected, and," he wiped it with a tissue, pulled on the wound to either side. It didn't open back up, or bleed again, "Seems to be healing about a hundred times faster than it should."

"They just put up a statistics page, and claim that there are 3,556,357,223 people on Version 1.0.1, and 2,586,486,387 people on Version 1.1.1 ß," Dragon said.

"Over two and a half billion people on a beta test version?" Armsmaster said, "That is as worrying as live-testing a production version on this scale."

"From the wrist-pics on facebook, the beta testers are children and old people."

"That's interesting. The world isn't going to take this well."

"Eternal youth? It's going to be a bloodbath."

~*i*~

The Great and Powerful Turtle had Butcher gripped in one claw, and floated back toward the PRT building.

"How would you get rid of a body-stealing, immortal villain?" Shadow Stalker asked, conversationally, from her perch on the top of The Great and Powerful Turtle's shell.

"Powers don't work past low Earth orbit somewhere, so I'd drop her skanky butt on the moon. Problem solved."

~*i*~

"Loose again," Harry sighed, "Down."

"Stalker? Yeah, let The Great and Powerful Turtle know we'd like her to pick up Butcher again."

Hermione nodded, "I'll ask,"

"Yeah, thousand a week, plus two hundred a pickup, retroactive," Luna said, "I think Butcher's just trying to catch us asleep."

"Yeah, thousand a week for being on-call, another two hundred a pickup," she listened a moment.

"Each," Luna answered.

"Yes, for each of you."

~*i*~

Sophia groaned, wiped her face, reached for the ringing phone, "Cockblocking bitch."

She picked up the phone, "Where is she?"

Anne copied down the address, then went back to shimmying into her uniform trousers.

Anne sat, watched smiling, while Sophia got back into her costume, "You could borrow one of my spare uniforms," she teased, "You're a medium long, so a small-regular would only be a little tight."

"And deprive you of the chance to watch me get dressed?" Sophia teased back.

"You know I enjoy undressing you a lot more, right?"

Sophia flashed her a grin, "I'd hope so," and pulled her mask back on.

~*i*~

"How often do you do this?" Vicky asked as the audience ransacked the remaining candy.

"Once a week," Harry answered.

"Why?"

"Because Luna still finds it funny, mostly." He watched the kids eating their candy, "And it makes people happy."

"And maybe a bit safer."

"Maybe." He looked at her side-eyed, "Would you like some candy, little girl?" he teased.

"No, I just wanted to see this little show in person. Dad actually laughed over it, when he found a video."

Hermione turned to look at her, "He did?"

"Yeah, new shrink, new meds, seems to work a bit better."

"Good."

"You're invited back over for dinner, Easter, bring any parents you want," Vicky said, looking down to the left, away from the other three.

"I'll ask my dad," Harry said.

"Expect four of us," Luna agreed.

~*i*~

"Mmph," Harry muttered, blinking awake. She pulled Hermione's phone from the table by their bed, waited for her eyes to focus, unlocked it, and texted The Great and Powerful Turtle an address.

That done, she called. It rang, went to voicemail. She hung up, dialed again, got an answer on the fourth ring.

"Yeah? Got it, we're awake. Ish. Call us again in ten minutes if we're not on the way yet."

"Gotcha. Thank you, Shadow Stalker."

"No problem. Four hundred a trip makes up for," she paused, "Eh, makes it easier to put up with."

Click.

~*i*~

"They've finally decided they're getting her out of Brockton Bay. Not sure where she's going, but at least it's not here."

"How are they going to contain her?"

"I don't know. Her teleporting is limited, so I believe they're marooning her somewhere."

"That might work."

~*T*~

Note: The Ultimate booby prize: Eternal youth, even harder to kill than normal humans, (slow, if they don't eat right) repair of all injuries, including lost teeth, limbs, injuries caused by bad diet, polio, or emergency work like spinal fusions.

The ßs get even better things - they can eat anything, can't be poisoned, have appetites that will steer them towards whatever they need to eat, won't hit puberty (if they haven't already) until they're at least 20, and build muscle like orangutans.

Then there's the Undocumented Features, such as how to re-enable fertility or change sex.

There's only 6.2 billion in this 2011, instead of 7 billion, due to endbringers, parahumans, and general strife.

15 & 16 updated, reposted 3 September. (1-14 were updated and logged in the previous chapter)

17-22 updated, reposted. 28 September.

23-26 updated, reposted 29 September.

27 & 28 updated, reposted 2 October

29 & 30 updated, reposted 4 October

31-34 updated, reposted 10 October

35-40 updated, reposted 12 November (even if the update to 40 was just this note saying I updated)


	41. Taylor 21

~*T*~

Lisa gave Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem another pet, "Yeah, they are kinda cute together, aren't they?" she said, feet curled underneath herself in the left corner of the green chesterfield Victoria had set up in the Chamber. Myrtle and Victoria were arguing with the Basilisk over the cleanup and decoration project. Myrtle was the tiniest bit annoyed, but still smiling. Victoria was grinning, even as she was doing all the wand-work, and the Basilisk was grumpy that she had to relocate her preserved spiders.

~*i*~

"What's wrong, Greengrass?"

"Nothing, Potter."

"If you say so. If you tell me what's bothering you, I'll help you kill it."

"Don't want to kill it," she muttered.

"Then tell me what's bothering you, and I won't help you kill it," Taylor said, held out a hand, "How's that?"

~*i*~

"Another day, another letter," Amy told Hedwig.

"Prek," Hedwig said with a nod.

"It's to my parents," she shrugged, "Hermione's parents. Could you wait for an answer?"

"Pre."

"Thank you," Amy looked at Hedwig, "Do you like cuddles?"

"E. Eck," Hedwig raised a wing in a half-shrug.

"May I give you a little cuddle, then?"

"Pre."

Hedwig submitted to a gentle squeeze, then took Hermione's letter.

~*i*~

Lisa sobbed suddenly, grabbed Amy, and walked straight out of Potions.

"Fuck," Taylor said.

"Two points, Potter, for language," Snape said from the front, without even turning around.

Taylor shrugged, dropped a handful of grey powder in her cauldron, looked to Amy's, then Lisa's. She darted to Lisa's first, and dumped in a handful of grey dust, hooked the bail, and carried it over to Amy's, dropped in a handful of grey powder there, and used another hook to carry it to her own desk. She stirred all three cauldrons, making sure the potion was neutralized, added water and dumped them, quickly gave them a scrub, then cleaned all three desks. She started for the door with all three cauldrons and sets of supplies.

"One point for safeing the potions, and one for efficient cleanup, Potter. You will need to bring the potions to the next class, or get a zero."

"Yes, professor," Taylor said, and followed her wives from the classroom.

~*i*~

"I've been talking with him for weeks, but," Lisa's breath hitched, and Taylor shut the door, shoved cauldrons and potions supplies onto a shelf.

"But?" Amy asked gently as Taylor climbed into their bed.

Taylor sealed and silenced the curtains.

"He's still made of pain," Lisa said, her face wet.

"Yeah, he made a lot of bad choices," Taylor nodded, cuddling into her wives.

Lisa clutched her back desperately.

~*i*~

Sirius looked into the water from the beach, splashing his paws and shivering.

"Look, I know you're from a prudish culture that over sexualizes nudity," Taylor told him, treading water a foot or so from the bottom, "But come in, the water's fine, you can't see anything you don't want to once you're in."

Sirius shook his head, backed up a couple feet, rose to stand, "Yeah, no, I'm cold on the shoreline. I'll start the fire, and we can roast marshmallows once the three of you are dressed again."

"OK. I brought stuff for cocoa, too."

"I'll start some."

"Thank you," Taylor said before darting for deeper water.

~*i*~

"Fucking hell," Lisa said, slumping back against the headboard, "Fucking hormones. Fucking wet dreams. Fucking baby-fevered dark lords. Fucking inconvenient timing. Fuck."

Amy looked at her in shock. Taylor, having sealed and silenced their bed curtains, took her hand.

"What's wrong?"

"Myrtle wants thirty kids, she convinced Tom-the-Jade-who-was-a-diadem a baby or ten would be better than conquering the Wizarding World, and us? We'd finally gotten the world settled, and you'd convinced me I wanted a baby, then-"

"Poof, we woke up as ten and eleven year olds. Fucking hormones."

"I just wanted a baby," Amy said, "I hope I didn't convince you."

"I could see how excited you were," Taylor said, softly, reaching for Amy's hand.

"It," Lisa banged her head on the headboard, **thunk** , "Babies are fucking contagious."

"No babies until you are seventeen."

"13 October 1997, then?"

~*i*~

"If you are having trouble with the spell, first check the incantation: Win- _gar_ -dium levi- _o_ -sa," Amy said, "with a nice, long gar. Then check your wand movements."

"If you're so smart, why don't you do it?" Ron Weasley demanded.

His feather floated into the air, "Because," the feather dropped back to the table, "You still need to tell your wand the spell you want, but it isn't all that smart, so it is easy to confuse it."

~*i*~

All Taylor had listened to the first time was "Granger," "Terror," and "has no friends," but that was quite enough to go back over what she had heard and listen to it again..

Weasley hit the wall with a **crack** , his hands went to his throat, and Taylor stalked closer.

"I find your lack of faith . . . " she quoted, "disturbing."

Taylor squeezed his throat a little. Weasley squeaked, his feet kicking uselessly against the wall.

"When a goddess, even one as derated as Amy, offers you help it would behoove you to accept it with gratitude. If you cannot accept it, you should decline it very respectfully," Taylor shook him a bit, his head bobbling a little, "Is that understood?"

He tried to nod.

Taylor pulled him from the wall, pushed him back with a **thump** , "Is that understood?"

"Yes," he forced out.

Taylor dropped him to his feet, "Tell me what you understood."

"What?"

"Were you dropped on your head as a baby?" Taylor's voice grew shrill, and she forced it back down, "Read back what I told you, so that I can be sure you understood it."

"Don't pick on Granger or you'll beat me up?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head.

Taylor whirled sharply, "Lisa," she said, "Could you?"

Lisa stepped up, and Taylor tucked herself under Amy's chin.

"It's OK," Amy said, "He has no power over me."

"No, it's not. No one gets to pick on you."

~*T*~

Note: A new chapter! An actual new not-posted-before chapter, instead of updated ones.

Every earlier chapter has been edited, and most have been enlarged, since their initial posting.

13 Nov 2018.


	42. Harry 21

~*T*~

Harry flipped to a fresh page, wrote "Rule Brockton Bay with an Iron Fist" in the middle again, and circled it.

He wrote, and circled, Gangs, Cops, PR, and Economy around the page.

"What's next?"

~*i*~

Harry sat, feet over the edge, on the crumbling seawall, looking at the rust-streaked hulk blocking the channel. Luna leaned on her right shoulder, and Hermione sat behind them, legs spread wide, arms wrapped about the other two. Luna traced slow circles on Hermione's hand, and Hermione slow circles on Luna's tummy.

"So, the question is," Harry said, "How to get rid of it without causing too much uproar."

"Float it out," Luna said, "It's been scuttled, so it should be mostly intact. Seal it up, re-inflate it, and pull it up on land for scrapping."

"Can we just use it as a ship?" Harry asked.

"Too much damage, it'd cost as much to fix as a good used ship, and it's small by modern standards."

"Floating base?"

"Eh," Luna shrugs, "Maybe?"

"How much to buy it?"

"Since it's sunk, and has been sunk for a while, we can claim it as salvage. The lawyers should cost less than the scrap value."

"OK," Hermione said, "Any legal crap to take care of before we float it?"

"Nope."

Hermione stood up, and climbed down far enough to dip her toe in the water.

"It'll be up in a couple days."

"Is it going to go anywhere?"

"The anchor chains are down."

"We should probably," Luna starts, "Yeah, like that."

"The channels are silted," Harry said, "and all the little islands."

"Yeah, I'm taking care of them, too," Hermione smiled, "That's the last of the ones on the bottom."

~*i*~

"What's happening?" Piggot asked, looking over Armsmaster's shoulder as he worked the drone.

"Some sort of plant matter has filled the holes, and the ship was filled with a carbon-dioxide filled cellulose foam, from what I can tell from the air. It is in no way seaworthy, but it is now possible to tow, or push. Two, or maybe three, big tugs and the main channel could be cleared."

"Who?"

"The Dockworker's Association still has tugs, but I do not know if they are still seaworthy."

"No, who could have filled the ship with breadfruit?"

"It is not," Armsmaster laughed, "That is a good pun, and an apt description. No one, or no one known. Blasto might be able to do it, if he managed to shift his focus off useless things like human cloning."

"But he is obsessed," Piggot sighs, "Could someone have paid him? Bought breadfruit seeds?"

"If the breadfruit grew, covering the light sources, then inflated? No one would have noticed until the first ship popped to the surface."

"Or it may be a new bio-tinker, trying to advertise," Armsmaster mentioned, "Float the boat graveyard, let someone salvage the steel and brass, then sell breadfruit seeds to salvage operations. I do not have the numbers for the profitability of such a venture, and thus cannot comment on its likelihood."

"Continue to monitor, and see who collects the hulks."

"I will."

~*i*~

"I didn't," Hermione looked up from the newspaper, stricken, "Why are they doing this?"

Harry glanced at the paper, shrugged one shoulder, "You broke their favorite dream, probably," she said.

"Favorite dream?" Hermione tilted her head, and raised one eyebrow questioningly.

"That the arsehole they married would finally die and leave them in peace," She paused, "Or they'd die, and still be in peace."

"How many?"

"Thousands, probably," Luna answered, "Stateside. There's already been a few hundred, and there's always been people who think murder is better than divorce for whatever reason."

Hermione's face fell further, and Luna followed Harry and wrapped her arms around them both.

~*i*~

"All these ships are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there," the big banner on the barnacle-covered side of the small, 45-ton, ship tied up to the Dockworker's small pier read.

"Someone's read Asimov," Wilson said.

"Or seen the movie," Haedly offered, "Is there even a Europa in the graveyard?"

"Yes, actually,' Hebert said, "And her owners are current on her docking fees."

Wilson broke out laughing.

~*i*~

"Um," the mate called up, "I'm reading ten fathoms."

"Impossible, it's low tide," the skipper called back, "There's obviously something wrong. Throw a line."

"Eleven fathoms, which matches the sonar," The mate called back a moment later.

"Ahead slow, keep checking."

"We're missing another island," The mate called up, "Six fathoms where it used to be, says the sonar."

~*i*~

"What's that?" Hermione asked, only half caring.

"Season three of Initial D," Luna answered, showing her the box.

"Put something happy on," Hermione said, flopping onto the couch in Luna's edifice, "We'll watch that when Harry gets back from school."

Luna fussed with the computer attached to the TV, then sat.

Hermione curled up beside her, and pressed her face to Luna's belly. She stroked Hermione's hair, and didn't pay much attention to the TV at all.

~*i*~

The tugs were snugged up, and the prize crew climbed over, checked the capstans for the anchor chains, and sighed. They could be driven manually. That was going to be hard, slow work, but forty tons of steel chain and anchors, even with a decade's rust, is still valuable enough to justify the labor cost.

The levers are unshipped, mounted, and the first capstan slowly starts to turn under the hands of eight men.

~*T*~

Note: This Brockton Bay is located in New Hampshire, where Hampton, Hampton Falls, Seabrook, and Hampton Beach are located, just north of the border with Massachusetts.

PatB's Brockton Bay is Portsmouth, and one of the issues there (which I didn't make explicit, but should have) is that the PRT Headquarters and downtown are on the New Hampshire side, and the docks and trainyard are in Maine . . .

The author has been reminded that 2010: Odyssey Two is by Arther C. Clarke, not Asimov.

The author says this is Wilson's mistake, despite the fact that the Author read the book in middle school, and hasn't re-watched the movie in two or three years ^_^


	43. Taylor 22

~*T*~.

"Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall greeted them at the end of the feast, as the last of the pies vanished, "The headmaster would like to speak to you before bed."

Taylor looked to Lisa, over her to Amy. Both gave tiny nods back.

"That's fine," Taylor waved to the opposite side of the table, "He's welcome to join us."

McGonagall's lips twitched, then tightened into a flat line, but her eyes still betrayed her amusement, "I'll let him know."

The old wizard folded himself onto the bench across the Gryffindor table, "How have you liked school so far, Miss Potter?"

Another glance between the girls, another pair of nods, "Call me Taylor, Headmaster."

He nodded, stroked his beard, "Call me Albus, then."

"School has been fun, but I've noticed some issues, Albus."

"Oh?"

"What is your school trying to teach? Do you want your students to leave with an understanding of proper behavior, knowing that self-control and working together are how humans have come to be the dominant species on the planet? Or do you want them to be feral animals, who know that might makes right, and working together is for losers and Hufflepuffs?"

"And you think that the second is what I'm fostering," Albus slumped a little, stroking his beard, "Looking over my time as headmaster, you may be right."

"It's not all your fault," Lisa said, watching Albus carefully, "There was a certain artifact left here early in your term, by a certain applicant for the position of Dark Arts instructor. It bled anger, shame, fear, despair, as well as anchoring a certain curse."

"This artifact has been dealt with?"

"Yes, it has, released, its fear, its hold on the physical world."

"There is a man," Amy cut in, "From Brazil, named Paulo Freire. I would start with The Pedagogy of the Oppressed." A thin paperback appeared next to her plate, "Thank you."

"That is an interesting title," Albus said.

Amy picked it up, and passed it over respectfully, held with both hands. Albus accepted it the same way.

"Yes, you, and your teachers, should read that," Taylor nodded, "And you should decide if you want us to police ourselves, or if you want the teachers to police us, but the current method, of no corrective action, will never work."

"And Mister Weasley?"

"Will be more circumspect in the future, and think a little more before speaking," Lisa said.

"I could have been gentler towards him," Taylor said, "But he didn't listen when I just used my words. He didn't listen very well when I used magic, either."

"I noticed that. Maybe being held against the wall by the throat distracted him?" Albus asked.

"Probably. But he was paying attention when Lisa talked to him, and listened to her."

"Yes, he did. I'll talk to the teachers and prefects, and see if we can be more proactive about the values of politeness."

"That would be appreciated, Albus."

~*i*~

"Freddie Mercury is still alive," Taylor said, looking up suddenly.

"He died in November, 1991," Lisa said, then sat up, throwing her feet over the edge of the bed, "Today's November 1st."

"What day in November?" Amy asked.

"Don't remember, but it wasn't quick," Lisa said, "You can cure AIDS, right?"

"Probably. Someone else wiped it out years before I triggered."

"Where's he living?"

"Kensington," Lisa answered, "Do we know a wide area search?"

"I don't," Amy said.

Taylor shook her head, wiggling into a pair of jeans, "Not yet."

"We'll have to just ask around, I guess."

~ *i*~

"We're looking for Freddie Mercury's house," Taylor said, brandishing the copy of Flash Gordon.

"He's almost certainly not going to sign that," the barmaid says, smiling, "But it's 1 Logan Place, the sign says 'Garden Lodge.'"

"A picture of us at his garden gate would be enough," Lisa said, indicating the camera, "We've just put this off for too long."

"Vacation over?" the girl asked.

"Something like that," Amy agreed. "Thank you!" she gushed, and leaned forward to give the barmaid a hug.

"Off with you dearies, it's not going to get any lighter," they were ushered out with a little laugh.

~*i*~

"Brother o' mine," Gred said, putting a hand on Ron's shoulder.

"We need to talk with you," Feorge put his hand on Ron's other shoulder.

The brothers walked from the room, then into a shallow alcove, and then into a dark tunnel hung with cobwebs. Ron shrank in his brothers' arms, "Spiders," he said.

The spiders came out, formed a ring around the brothers, all glittering eyes and pedipalps, but none stayed over their heads.

Ron whimpered, crossed his arms over his tummy, hunched his shoulders.

"The spiders are just watching," Feorge said.

"You were picking on someone trying to help you?"

"Yes," Ron said in a small voice.

"Was that a good idea?"

"No."

"Why did you do it?"

"Luna already had this talk with me," Ron said, "Because I felt ashamed that I was weak because I couldn't do the levitation charm, so I pushed away, trying to shame Granger to distract myself from my own shame."

"Oh?"

"I," he paused, "I need to recognize my shame before it drives me to do dumb things. I," he paused, "Luna said I am not a bad kid, but I do bad things. I procrastinate, I choose easy paths, I lash out at others to try and feel better. I am no weaker than any other kid, and have nothing to be ashamed of, I just need to recognize how shame feels, and work around it, instead of letting it work me."

"She said that."

"Yep. Makes too bloody much sense, and Potter said when a goddess offers help, accept it with gratitude or turn it down politely, so I guess I'm grateful," he paused, "I think I said thanks."

"Ickle firsty Luna's a goddess?"

"Potter said Amy, which I think is Granger's goddess name, but Potter and Luna are too, I think."

"Why do you think that?"

"You've seen them, right?" Ron looked up at his brothers, who nod, confused, "Potter said Amy was a derated goddess, which I think means reduced enough to pass as a first year."

George and Fred exchanged a look over Ron's head.

"Hey, how do you address a goddess pretending to be a firsty?"

"I think it would be best to use her name, if she's pretending."

"Yeah, probably," Ron nodded, "Or I could ask."

~*T*~


	44. Harry 22

~*T*~

Hermione looked up to see Carol Dallon in the audience this week, and started to curl in on herself. She took a deep breath, spread her feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart, head up, shoulders back, hands on her hips, and turned back to Luna's spiel.

"Mayla," Luna pointed with her chin, "Brought up a good point last week: Economics can drive abductions. I asked you guys to think about it, why, how, is it a good thing or a bad one?"

"Getting abducted and forced into prostitution is bad," a boy said. He got a Dove dark chocolate bar.

"Being a prostitute wouldn't be bad," the teen paused, adjusted his jacket, "Well, the pay would probably still kinda suck, being a female-dominated profession and all, but the rest of it would be much less bad if it wasn't illegal. If it was legal and had less social," he paused again, "Wasn't looked down on as much, it would be kinda OK, a little bit soul-destroying, but most jobs are," he paused again, "Stigma, that's the word I was looking for." He got a Milky Way Midnight and a hug from the girl next to him.

"Yeah, if it wasn't illegal, there wouldn't be any pimps," a girl said. She got a bag of Reece's Pieces.

"What's the difference between a pimp and a hired guard? They both provide security the police can't, because prostitution is illegal." Luna asked.

"Power," a man in the back said, after waiting a few seconds. He got a Dove dark chocolate bar.

"Yeah," a girl closer to the front said, "The guard is hired, and there's agreed upon pay and duties. He's an employee. The pimp controls the girls, takes their money and only gives a little of it back, controls how they spend their time, what they wear, who they have sex with, molests them whenever he wants." She got a hug, and a bag of M&Ms.

"Why is prostitution illegal?"

"Because the bible says its wrong?"

"Where does it say that?" Luna asked, but got the girl a bag of Reece's Pieces, too.

"Didn't Jesus throw the prostitutes out of the Temple?" He got a Milky Way Midnight.

"Was that "prostitution is bad" or "don't have sex in church"?" She got a Dove dark chocolate bar.

"That's a good question, and one the Bible doesn't provide a clear answer to," Carol said.

Hemione watched, bemused, as she got a bag of Reece's Pieces.

"Because the church wanted to control women," an older girl said, "Just like they went after healers and midwives." She got a bag of M&Ms.

"Yeah," a boy said, "Independent money? Control over fertility and children?" he laughed, "And heap shame on everything to do with sex as well as make it illegal, and we're still stuck," he got a bag of Reece's Pieces.

"So that's an overview of why prostitution being illegal is bad, try to think of some reasons why prostitution being illegal could be good."

The candy boxes were ransacked, and a short line asked nicely to get their tongues pulled.

"Could you do mine, too, Amy?" Carol said, last in line.

Hermione stared at her.

"Please?"

Hermione nodded, held up her hand.

Carol leaned it, held out her tongue, and Hermione pulled it to her eyebrow.

"Thank you," Carol said. She looked down a moment, then back up, "I'm proud of what you're doing, here. Did you know that people are posting these up on the internet?"

"No, I didn't."

"Can I give you a hug?"

Hermione nodded, and stepped closer.

~*i*~

"Speaking of prostitutes," Hermione asked, "How're they doing in Brockton Bay?"

"It's better. The ABB is offering security services, and being honest about it. The last pimp got out of the business," Harry paused, 'Well, there's a few who call themselves pimps, but have an ethical business model. So long as the prostitutes working with them remain happy and safe," she shrugged, "I'm not going to make things harder on them."

~*i*~

"Martha!" Hermione recognized the young woman when she touched her, "How are you?"

"Suspiciously well," Martha said, a bit testily, "I didn't like being weak, but being old? Being almost done with all this shit? That was nice."

"Are there any upsides?"

"Having a libido again is odd. The fact that no one cares when I dance with a girl at the bar is nice, though."

"Yeah, that's one of the nicest things about this modern world."

"When I was a girl, the first time? No one cared. No one discussed it. It was hard, but that was because two girls had a hard time making enough to live on," she looked down at her soft, smooth hand, "Then the money got better, and the people got worse."

"Yeah, there's nothing like blaming someone to distract from bigger problems."

"And things have gotten so much better these last few years. I copped out decades ago, married a man. He was nice. He died, he was a little younger than me, but . . . " she blinked, sighed. "And now I need to worry about the fact that I've been eating my principal, I haven't worked in a decade, two incomes are probably not going to be enough to afford kids. Even worse, I actually want some now," she shook her head, "SNAFU."

"May I give you a hug?"

Martha looked at her suspiciously, "OK."

Hermione wrapped her arms around her, "Life can be hard, but it can be awesome, too. A lot of the difference is just you, and the way you view the world."

"Gotta love the Army, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you don't love what you're doing, you'll just be miserable. Where's the fun in that?" Martha pulled back from the hug and wiped her face, "Yeah," she smiled sadly, "See you round."

"See you," Hermione waved.

~*T*~

A guest pointed out an edit fail on the author's part. That was fixed..


	45. Taylor 23

~*T*~

"Anyone home?"

"Two people, no CommBeetles," Taylor said.

Amy glanced left and right before following Taylor, but Lisa just hopped over the wall.

Taylor knocked, then stepped back, and Amy stepped forward.

The curtain over the fanlight twitched, and a male voice called, "Jim!"

A moment later the door opened to reveal a familiar man, looking pale and wan, almost painfully thin.

"Hello, Mister Mercury," Amy said, holding out her hand for a shake.

He gave her the gentle squeeze of someone who shakes too many hands, "Hello. Can I help you?"

Amy shook his hand a couple times more than normal, but eventually released him, glancing down, a tiny flush on her cheeks.

"Amy wanted to shake your hand, but I was hoping for an autograph?" Taylor held out the album and a sharpie marker.

He smiled, "Sure, why not," already less drawn, something softening about his eyes.

Taylor stepped back, stuffing the sharpie in her pocket and holding her signed album cover.

"Thank you," Lisa gave him a one-armed hug, "Have a great evening."

"You too," he said, an almost involuntary smile on his face. He stood and watched as the girls hopped back over the wall.

"What was that?"

"We need a higher wall," he said, "We've got little girls jumping the current one."

~*i*~

Taylor relayed that.

Amy smiled, "Have I told you recently that I love being a supervillain?"

"No," Lisa answered.

"I LOVE BEING A SUPERVILLAIN!" Amy yelled into the Kensington night. She grabbed Taylor and Lisa's hands, "Let's go home."

~*i*~

"Maiah," Taylor heard, even as she woke, rocked her butt back against Lisa.

"Leiah," Lisa gasped.

Amy stirred, pressed close, smiling, eyes closed, "Yeah, those are pretty baby names."

"Fuck!" Taylor yelled.

Amy's eyes snapped open. She blinked once, twice, then poked Lisa hard in the shoulder, "Wake up!"

"What?" She blinked a few times, "Oh shit," she said, then, "Don't think of babies."

Taylor groaned, "Pink elephants."

"A perfect baby-doll exoskeleton for the paranoid," Amy said, sitting up, "With frizzy hair like Taylor."

Lisa smiled, "and soft, baby-soft, skin, with a few freckles."

"And perfect amber eyes like Amy."

"It's a baby doll, eyes like you, and me, and Amy, whichever she wants."

Dark, frizzy hair shrouded pale pink skin, slowly growing more opaque, "Perfectly articulated, adjustable, so she can be a baby or a kid, as she wants, or needs, strong," Taylor said.

"Self-healing, tough, unkillable."

"Power armor," the paranoid said, in ASL, "With the ability to speak."

Taylor and Amy nodded.

"Feel, and be cuddled," Lisa said.

The exoskeleton dropped to the bed. The paranoid starts looking it over.

"Did we redirect quick enough?"

"I think so," Lisa said.

Amy grabbed Lisa and Taylor's hands, "No zygotes in either of you."

"Do you have a tricorder?"

"Distracted myself. I'll make one later."

The paranoid crawled over in its new doll exoskeleton, "Cuddles?"

Amy gathered her in her arms, and the paranoid blinked pretty green baby-eyes up at her. "I was dreaming about heteropaternal twins," she smiled at her wives, "One with each of you."

"We're going to the hospital wing," Lisa said, "Get some clothes on."

~*i*~

"We need a book on contraceptive wards," Lisa told Ms. Pince, the librarian.

She looked over the three girls, and the baby doll waved from the tallest girl's arms.

"What a cute baby," she said.

The baby smiled back, her grin showing teeth, "Thank you."

She blinked.

"Yeah, we've decided no real babies until we're all 17, so contraceptive wards, please."

~*i*~

Lisa carved the last rune onto Parvati's bed, fed it a little power, smiled when it glowed faintly a moment. She stood up, stretched, yawned, "Done here."

Taylor flopped back from Lisa's dusty bed, stretched her arms along the floor over her head, then yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. "That's our room, we can do more of them tomorrow."

~*i*~

"You've noticed our precocious firsties' new doll," Severus starts.

Minerva nodded.

"Precocious is the right word," Poppy laughed, "I normally don't have pregnancy scares before third year."

"So no extraordinary procedures were needed?" Albus asked.

"No, no one was pregnant. Did you know that Muggles still can't even transplant a zygote, much less an embryo that has started to form a placenta?"

"I'd heard talk of muggle surrogate mothers, so I thought they'd managed something," Severus said.

"That's only possible, apparently, if they fertilize the zygote ex vivo, then implant it," Poppy sighed, "They have a dearth of family of childbearing age, like most of the current students, but I'm sure we could have found someone."

"You sound like they could have been pregnant."

"If they'd been awake," Poppy looked down, shook her head, "They totally would have overpowered the contraceptive ward."

"They warded every bed in Gryffindor tower," Minerva laughed, "I thought they were being excessive."

"Hopefully that'll be enough," Poppy said

"And the creepy baby doll?" Minerva asked.

"I have no idea."

~*i*~

The paranoid smiled at Sirius, "Hello, grandpa!"

Sirius sputtered, "What?"

Taylor laughed at him, "She's," she paused, turned to the paranoid, "Do you have a preferred gender? You probably need a name, too."

The paranoid nodded, smiled, "Sarah, after the girl from Labyrinth."

"OK, sounds good," Taylor smiled, "Sarah's a friend of ours, but her doll-body's new."

"I've never seen anything like her," Sirius said.

"You wouldn't have," Taylor agreed.

"So how did you make her?"

"Amy made her," Taylor smiled, "Amy's awesome."

"I can tell you're smitten," Sirius agreed.

"Totally," Taylor agreed, "But her body," she shrugged, "Fuck puberty. We've carved supplemental contraceptive wards on all the beds in Gryffindor tower now, but we're still worried."

"Yeah," Sirius said, "I can get you some books from our library," he sighed, "We fell asleep on a couch together."

Taylor nodded, gave his hand a squeeze, "Can I hug you?"

~*T*~


	46. Harry 23

~*T*~

"Yeah, McFeely's Taxi. They have one van," Officer Ross waved at the white van with no windows on the cargo area, "One driver," the blonde girl gave the cop car a salute before swinging back into the driver's seat, "And a funny sense of humor."

Officer Mitchel's lip curved down, reading the stickers. "McFeely's Taxi." "Pickup and Molestation Transportation." (The word Molestation is struck out with red spraypaint, which was also used to write "Transportation." (FF.N is horrible on formating!)) "Free Candy!" "1(101)328-7448." "For Complaints, call Helen Hunt, 1(101)328-7449 x0243"

She re-read the phone number, put her face in her hand, and shook her head.

"Yeah, funny strange, rather than funny ha-ha."

"McFeely drives like she sees the future. Never been in an accident, never been seen at it by a cop or a camera, but crosses town in ten minutes. Closest anyone's gotten is brake lights and a smell of tire smoke."

"What?"

"First report we had, before she got a medallion, she was doing about a hundred and twenty down the freeway into town. Van was parked at the hospital with the engine cold by the time we tracked it down."

"Really."

"Yep."

"And they give out free candy. And MREs."

"What?"

"Ms. McFeely there says they're not good, but better than going hungry."

"Shouldn't she be in school?"

"College."

"She looks really young."

"She's not yet 18. She's got two girls she rides around with, Taylor Hebert, 15, and Amy Dallon, 16."

"So we've got three hoodlums who think it's funny to run an illegal taxi service?"

"It's as legal as any other, they've got a medallion, and haven't been caught flouting traffic laws. Taylor's dad works for the Dockworkers Association, and Amy's Panacea."

"Oh."

"Yeah, they apparently think McFeely's Taxi is the greatest game ever, so."

~*i*~

"Amy's family has invited us over for Easter," Harry told Taylor's father.

"That's nice. Are you going?"

"I'd planned on it. Can you make it?"

He blinked, "I'm included in that us?"

Harry tilted her head at him, "You are my dad, you know."

He wiped at his eyes, "I'd like that."

Harry gave her dad a hug.

If her neck got wet where he pressed his face to it, she didn't mention it.

~*i*~

"The great and terrible Mouse Protector would join your team!"

The tiny woman dressed as a cartoon mouse stood before The Great and Powerful Turtle's shell, and Shadow Stalker leaned forward to look her up and down, "I thought you'd be taller."

Mouse Protector's lips tightened, then she responded, "A proper mouse is not too big. I am not the Rat Protector!"

"Amy says you can join," The Great and Powerful Turtle said, "Would you like a lift to the lair?"

"That would be Appreciated!"

"Does she ever speak normally?" Shadow Stalker asked quietly.

"Not while I am on Duty!" Mouse Protector answered.

The Great and Powerful Turtle extended a claw, and Mouse Protector ran nimbly up the chain.

Shadow Stalker forced down most of a laugh.

~*i*~

"Next on the list?" Luna said, "Endbringers."

"Oh?" Hermione asked, "Why?"

"Economics," Luna started, "Get global trade flowing again, this world is missing close to a billion people, so stability, human rights . . . "

"You want a GT-R," Hermione said.

"That, too."

"What's a GT-R?"

"They called it an R32 in Initial D," Hermione answered Harry.

"Oh, that was kinda pretty. The kid driving it was a dick, though," Harry sighed, "So how do we neutralize Leviathan? Forty feet tall at the shoulders, hydrokinetic, sank two major bedrock islands, kills people by the thousands whenever and wherever it strikes?"

"Antimatter and or nukes," Hermione sighed, "Amy put a lot of thought into it, but," she shrugged, "She had issues that blinded her. The biggest nuke used on an endbringer was a two megaton bomb they dropped on Behemoth, and it stripped his skin off and he didn't move for two days afterwards."

"Yeah, at that kind of damage to collateral ratio," Luna shook her head.

"We're coming due for an endbringer attack," Harry said, "Do we want to go and see what we can learn?"

"Want to?" Hermione shook her head, "Probably need to?"

~*i*~

A soft pop had the dark-haired woman spinning, weapon in hand, thumb under the safety, finger not quite on the trigger.

"Hana!"

She blinked, dropped the 1911 back into it's holster, and took a step back, arms crossed, glaring. "Mickey."

"I missed you."

"You sure showed it well, Miss Panya."

"You were all "The PR department would never approve," and "I can't see you anymore," and," she crossed her arms, slumped, protective, "It was easier to run."

"I'm sorry," Hana dropped her arms, reached, dropped them again, fidgeted with her fingers, "I missed you too."

"I've hooked up with Amy Dallon's team, so I'll be around for a while," Mickey smiled up at Hana, a soft smile that showed not a hint of teeth.

"Oh?" Hana reached again, and clutched Mickey's hand when she offered it.

"Yes," Mickey stepped close, brushed Hana's hand against her lips, "Come to dinner with me?"

Hazel eyes looked down into brown so dark they were almost black, "I'd like that."

~*c*~

Since we know almost nothing about canon!Mouse Protector, some info about this Mouse Protector:

Legal name: Michelle Panya

Age: Old enough to know better.

Height: Four foot, six and a quarter inches. (137.5 cm)

Height in costume: Five foot, two inches, including the ears. (157 cm)

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Black

Random facts:

Taunted with "Black as an eggplant" in middle school.

Worries that her inch-high afro is read as "unfeminine," or "aggressively afrocentrist," when it is mostly just cheap and lazy.

Discovered that her last name means "mouse" in Swahili during a school project, but has no written or oral history more detailed, or dating further back, than "My great-great-grandma Michelle, who died during the Depression, was a slave. She wouldn't talk about it."

~*T*~

Note: Michelle is totally referencing Janis Ian's "Society's Child" with the "I can't see you anymore." Hana has never heard that song, and missed the reference entirely.


	47. Taylor 24

~*T*~

"It's almost Thanksgiving," Lisa said, tracing the thin lines of glimmering golden characters on Taylor's bare chest.

"Mmm," Taylor half-moaned and half agreed.

Amy laughed, "They don't celebrate that over here," she said with a shake of her head.

"We celebrate it," Lisa said. She splashed bathwater at Amy.

"Are we going to borrow the kitchens to cook steak and lasagne?" Taylor asked.

"And marshmallow-pineapple-cranberry goo," Lisa agreed.

"The oatmeal helps with the itching a bit, but it's still," Amy ran her hand down the golden characters tattooed on her own arm, "Particularly the elbows."

Lisa picked up her wand, and cast an anti-itching charm for Amy.

"Does Sirius know who?" Amy asked, softly.

"One of the Bones family agreed to carry the baby, and Amelia was always too scared," Taylor paused, "Sirius said they wouldn't tell him until he was of age," she blinked.

Lisa nodded, "So many died."

"Susan and Amelia are all that's left," Amy said, "Do they think it'll be worse if they knew?"

Taylor shook her head, "I have no idea what they're thinking. Maybe Amelia didn't want to risk having to tell her niece that she's actually her mom? Or that she got a boy pregnant in her third year?"

Amy shook her head, "So fucking inconvenient."

~*i*~

Ron sat, quietly, with his homework in front of him, at one of the booths in the kitchen. He was more distracted, looking up and watching them, the elves, Taylor, Lisa, and Amy, cook, than actually doing his homework. He was asking Sarah questions, and slowly working on his potions essay.

Susan Bones, on the other hand, had given up her homework as a bad job, and sat with her chin on her hands, watching the show.

The girls were working from a couple recipes, written on the air over their prep counters in flaming letters. "Another layer of uncooked noodles," Taylor said, "Sauce," she spread it over the noodles, covering them totally, "Meat," she spread a thin layer from edge to edge of the pan, "Cottage cheese mixture," she layered it in thickly, "A last layer of sauce, then the shredded cheese."

"And then we bake?"

"Just like a cake," Taylor agreed.

"375º for an hour is not just like a cake," was the tart reply.

Taylor laughed, "I had a toy, who sang a pizza song, when I was younger."

"You don't bake pizza like a cake, either."

Ron actually laughed at that, then pretended to be working on his essay again.

~*i*~

Ron had finished his homework fifteen minutes earlier, and Amy gave it a quick look over, marked a couple misspellings, "It's toad spleen, not toadstool," she said, sliding the paper over, "Snape'll only take off a letter grade, because what you wrote is correct if it was toadstool."

Ron put his face in his hands and sighed loudly, faked a sob, then peeked between his fingers at Amy, "Should I do it over?"

"Can you swap the toadstool back to toad spleen without doing it all over?"

Ron slumped, thomped his head down to rest on the table, "After food?"

"It should be done in a couple minutes."

A few minutes later everyone was seated around the table with a small slice of lasagne and a piece of steak.

"This is how I like my steak," Amy said, "Just at the point where it's no longer raw in the middle, right when it's turned pink."

"Yes miss Granger," the elves chorused.

"Yes, miss Granger," Susan echoed, almost laughing.

"Why did we invite you here?" Lisa asked her.

"Because you said I might be related to Harry, so," she shrugged, "And you needed victims to vacuum victuals," she paused a moment, "Vicariously," she finished with a smile.

Taylor caught Amy's eyes. Amy nodded, "We have to try, anyway."

Lisa blinked, then smirked, then cackled.

Ron and Susan shared a dubious glance.

~*i*~

"What did they get up to this time?" Quirrell asked, tartly, after McGonagall brought up Granger, Lovegood, and Potter.

"You've noticed the tattoos, I assume?" Sprout asked.

"Yes, more contraceptive wards," Snape said, "It's good to see some people taking precautions before they become postcautions."

"Where did they get them?" McGonagall asked, "I can feel them from across the classroom, they're a little oppressive."

"Sirius Black brought the book in, and I helped them a bit," Pomfrey said, "Some of you might remember the couple months he was sick as a third year."

Snape's lips tightened.

"A story like that would encourage caution," Dumbledore nodded, "Have they needed any murtlap? Wards like that are effective, but dreadfully itchy until they heal."

"They've been getting by with a muggle remedy called an "Oatmeal Bath" and anti-itching charms," Pomfrey said, "And the itching is fading, they said."

"That's good. If the precautions were less intrusive, or had fewer side effects, more students would use them," Dumbledore looked to Snape and Pomfrey, "There was something in the papers a few years ago about a single-year contraceptive potion, did anything come of that?"

"Cramps and puking, apparently," Pomfrey answered, "There's a four-year potion now, but it leaves you sick as a dog for the first and last month. The seven-year potion is safest and has the fewest side effects, provided you don't take it before or too early in puberty," she sighed, "At least the contraceptive wards are strong enough for most of the students."

~*T*~

Notes:

"And then we bake." "Just like a cake." search youtube for "elmo pizza song" I've heard Elmo sing that soo many times . . .

Amy and Taylor are inspired to show Susan V for Vendetta after her bit of alliteration. Of course the movie didn't come out for another sixteen years, and V's introductory monologue isn't in the comics . . . so that'll take a bit of creativity.

And the author is still out of buffer.


End file.
